A Kindness
by Hawkz
Summary: (A terrible AU fanfic) Master Loki and slave Jane. Wherein Jane fights for freedom and Loki fights to keep what's his. Dark, dark, dark Loki, and more of a Loki & Jane story than Lokane.
1. Chapter 1

**General editing done over all the chapters. Site is not letting me load new documents (Had to work on my phone which I _disdain_), so I can't promise quicker updates. Trying to work out these kinks and get back to working on my laptop. **

**Also, still a bad ****fic, still has all the bad writing qualities - loquacity, fetishes, complex words and syntax, no beta, etc, etc. [Thumbs up] Y'all enjoy. **

**Hawkz**

* * *

The crowd hooted and hollered, mad and drunk over the capture of the beast and the perception of victorious superiority that proceeded it. Man rules over beast once more. Soldiers and noblemen with their rapiers squiggled forth, fearful and hesitant until their swords drew blood, after which they strutted like an alpha wolf in spring. So cocksure of their brawn bleeding into lecherous arrogance. Never mind that the beast was chained, starved, dehydrated, reduced from his former greatness until only a hollow husk survived. Those that survived the beast's capture showed off wounds and healing scars as if they did more than scream and flee. The cage occupied the center of the festivities initially, but games and shows bullied it off to the side where it was subject to the cruelties of the city's citizens. Children, the elderly, the rich, the poor, the free, even some enslaved; all mocked the beast's predicament and shuddered in fear when it deigned a snarl or bodily shift. Only when the cage held, the hexes and charms suppressing the beast's prowess, did audacity seep back into the audience. So long as the cage held.

Jane gripped the leash a little tighter, feeling bilious and edgy at the blatant sadism permeating the crowd. They cared not for another's suffering, and certainly not for hers. Jane was a slave. For a society to accept such barbarisms as valor beget a society tolerable to the subjugation of others against their will. Staring at the caged beast provoked a sympathetic light in her eyes.

_Yes_, she wanted to say, _I know your pain._

The dog yawned and scratched its ear with its hind leg, wholly unconcerned with the affairs of man. Its coat was washed and brushed to a shine that spoke of a pampered upbringing and perfumed oils scented its fur. Meanwhile Jane hadn't bathed since last week and the sweat from her labors resulted in a malodorous whiff that threatened to grow. Smells of mud and dogs, grass and meadows coated her as much as clothing did. Speaking of which, she needed to change her uniform. The Master had guests coming this eventide and he despised disgraces in his presence. Jane knew how he dealt with disgraces.

Jane gave her companion a rueful smile, but the beast looked not at her, not at anyone, so she moved on. She couldn't help throwing a look over her shoulder as she walked away. The beast looked to be in pain, physical pain. Jane shook her head to dislodge the thought. Trouble would be an understatement should she be caught.

The Master's house was large but not grand. He had wealth but no title, so he took to courting the nobility for whatever bones of grace and prestige they might throw his way. Jane returned the hound to the Master's study silent and unobserved, as slaves should be, and departed just the same. There was no blessing like the ignorance of the Master to your existence. The Master's hunting hounds stayed in the stables and these dogs Jane preferred to dote on. The alpha was crazy about kissing her and liked to sleep beside her—along with the rest of the pack, all huddled into crevices for warmth or laid about at obtuse angles so that some part of them touched her—and it was the alpha whose head rested on her stomach as it rose and fell with each breath. Her heartbeat and breathing had been his lullaby, and others, since puppyhood. The hounds may listen to the Master but they loved the slave. Jane in turn loved them; arguably she was the only one who did. Jane tumbled with them, fought with them, ruled over them, fed them, nursed their wounds, sung to them deep in the night, whelped them as puppies, and eased them back into the earth when their time came. She was their world and they hers.

It was no secret amongst the other servants and not one they were keen to share outside their circle. Chances are the Master would see it as an insult and seek punishment. How could his hounds love a slave over the master, their true master in his eyes? The other servants may not love Jane but a code of conduct existed: Servants, slaves, their ilk stick together, for if they don't defend each other no one else will. So the cook who ate while he worked and the silver polisher who nicked pennies from drawers and Jane who had the love and loyalty of the Master's hounds had allies. Probably not friends, maybe never friends, but silent allies who omitted truths and observances to keep the peace within their circle. To give one of their own one less beating.

The hounds bayed at her arrival, smelling her through the door and Jane knew she'd really have to bath well after her visit. The Master had taken them hunting earlier—hunting the beast as did all the other noblemen and their sycophants—and the hounds were covered in filth and grass stains and blood and soaked. Muddied paw prints on her uniform a small price to pay for affection. Love was a rare commodity for one of her kind. Some said a weakness. A slave who offered love was a fool; a fool who courted dangers and despair by offering the one thing their masters could not lay claim to. But whoever said Jane gave her love to the Master? No, she had love for the common man, the stranger, the children, and the hounds. The beast. Older slaves muttered warnings. She played a dangerous distraction, they said. Jane paid them little mind. She knew about kindness and its consequences.

_A small act of kindness can change the world_, her mother often said. Jane liked keeping what she could of her parents alive. For her father, it was the sky and stars, while for her mother, these quaint adages by which she lived her life. It didn't always help, but it kept the cynicism and gloom at bay. So it was one of these truisms that Jane chanted to herself as she crept from the stables, away from the warmth of the hunting dogs and to the beast's cage six days hence. Six days to gather her courage.

Wolflike, thewy, and ancient in ways her people could only fantasize and envy in other creatures. Creatures similar to the one that wandered too close to this city-state were like to be ensnared. Some escaped, some didn't. This proved to be one of the unlucky ones. Jane could relate. Luck seldom favored her either. However careful her steps, the bucket's water sloshed over the side, which drew a grimace from her when it chanced to hit her fingers, though it had significantly cooled by the time she made it to the beast.

Blue-green eyes glowed from within the cage, shining with unnatural intelligence as they watched her from afar. Jane couldn't keep the shivers from rolling up and down her spine, her flesh prickling in warning. Primal senses buried deep generation after generation stirred into being. _Turn back,_ they said. She courted danger, potential death by going to this creature. Jane steeled herself, still trembling from the cool air and a niggling sense of fear but her steps were resolute. No turning back now. Not while the poor thing continued to hurt. Another's pain unsettled her to this day. Call it an additional weakness, one of many she had.

Those eyes watched her, and when she grew too close its lips curled back revealing sword sharp canines, all pearly white and capable to snapping bone, steel—anything. Jane gulped. It did not look happy to see her. Jane opened her mouth to speak but her jaw clicked shut.

_Does it even understand speech?_ _Probably not. _Though those keen eyes says it understood everything else; it understood how cruel people could be. Jane's eyes flickered to its wounds, inflicted by sword and stone. He may not be able to fit through the bars but Jane was small—always small, still small—and they did not hinder her.

A lethal paw, claws extended, caught her shoulder and drew a strangled cry from her. Blood. Blood flowed between her fingers trying to stem the laceration. From outside the cage, she withdrew the rag—lukewarm as was the water—and pressed it to her injury, wheezing out a hiss. The rag cleaned up her wound some, doing no more than wiping away the blood really, but Jane kept eye contact with the creature.

"Your turn," she said, her words stronger than she felt. One of its ears twitched, eyeing her actions then going back to her face. The tension in its muscles mitigated some. Inhaling and fighting to amass audacity, or rather willingness to take foolhardy risks, back through the bars she traveled, back into the cage. This time it didn't swipe at her but Jane knew better than to think it friendly. Hostility bled into its eyes, held back only by a smidgen of tolerance plus curiosity. She, Jane, was a curiosity. Once more her throat bobbed as she gulped trying and failing to swallow and bury the fear crawling up her throat. Crouching by its ribs, under the watchful stare of the beast, Jane cleaned the beast's injuries. When she concentrated on the blood and gashes, Jane could almost imagine him one of the hounds and her fingers gained a tender, delicate touch.

A growl rumbled through its body when her hands dug into a painful looking wound that spanned from the belly to the backside. Jane flinched and withdrew her hands, chancing a glance at the beast. Its eyes were closed, paws clenched, otherwise it did not pull away from her ministrations. A couple of frightened breaths later, Jane resumed caring for it. The water was cold and dyed a thick red by the time she finished cleaning its wounds—alas, she had no bandages on her to keep them cleaned—and a dull sun powdered the sky a pale, pale whitish blue along the horizon. She could afford to stay no longer. Though she turned to look at the creature, the beast to not return the favor, keeping his back on her as she left.

One instance of kindness does not a kind person make.

_She will not come back_, the creature told itself.

And so she didn't. Not until two nights later and then every other night since.

The alpha did not like how she smelled upon her first return, snuffling and shying from her touch like an upset lover. The others clustered around her, sniffing and inquisitive of why she smelled of the beast they hunted only so long ago. Feeding them soothed most of the packs worries along with affectionate rubs and petting for the alpha to huff and forgive her transgression. Jane rolled her eyes at the dog, smiling when he rolled into her stomach like his puppy days. When the doors to the stables banged open, Jane expected Cassandra or stable boy Rook. Her face went ashen and she scrambled to her feet and from there to a bow when the Master stepped into the light. He so rarely came by the stables, unless going for a hunt. Jane's stomach twisted into unpleasant knots when his feet slowed and stopped in front of her.

"My guest last night," the cautious pace of his speech told of drunkenness that continued to leech at his senses, "he inquired about good hounds for the hunt. Where is the stable master? Where is that thrice damned slave?" It was early in the morning, and the stable master always walked the horses for some light exercise least their caretakers wish to run them that day. Jane told him as much in low, respectful tones. The Master frowned, not registering her presence. However, he came back into focus and startled as if just registering her existence.

"You then. Do you know hunting dogs?" Better than he ever would. Better than any in the household. Jane gave a demur, humble reply that she took care of the dogs, yes. He grunted, not really acknowledging her, and ordered her to fetch him some more wine and something to break his fast. Jane bowed again and scurried to the kitchens. Some of the dogs made to follow her but a subtle hand gesture stayed them. She returned promptly, snagging a quick bite of yesterday's bread for herself as she walked back. Unfortunately for her the Master stayed in the stable, eating and drinking and complaining that the stable master was late, damn him. Busying herself with tasks gave her an excuse to wander away. She breathed a near audible sigh of relief when Kairo, the stable master, returned, taking the attentions of the Master with him. Her luck, it seemed, did not extend that far.

"Aye, sir I know the dogs, but Jane here takes care of them, raises them. She knows these dogs better than any one in the stables." Jane cursed his self-deprecating nature. She'd prefer the Master not really know of her.

"The girl?" he said, incredulous.

"Aye, raises them from pups, trains them. She's given you your best hounds in all the years I've been in service, sir. Young but capable. The alpha you're so proud of is her finest work." Jane dared not look up and dared not leave her task, but when the Master barked for her presence, there was little else she could do but obey.

His eyes blinked more than usual, albeit the brightness in his cheeks said he was more awake. Or the wine was doing as alcohol does and tempering his headache. It clearly did not improve his mood much as he scowled at her arrival.

"Kairo here says you know my hounds best. Tell me, which is the finest tracker?" Compared to her night with the beast, this man seemed a hundred times more frightening in comparison. Jane fought down her insecurities and answered accordingly.

"Dreyfuss, the spotted hound with the three legs, sire, is your best tracker but Arco is your swiftest hound. I suggest using the two if you desire using the dogs to hunt down anything like rabbits or foxes but if you seek only deer and boars then Ribs alone or with one of the hounds with stronger jaws are better suited. For deer, Mugi is able and good but there is no hound stronger and few faster than your alpha, Kazi. It would be he you want for boar hunting." There was a beat of silence before the Master asked other questions—who sired which pups, their age, health, strength, temperament and Jane answered them all, sometimes forced to have the dogs perform tricks or behavior to prove her point. One glance up showed the Master was looking at her, right _at_ her. Jane licked her lips, mouth and throat feeling painfully dry when the man stayed silent, seeming to think.

"I see." There were a few more beats of silence. "Select hounds for foxes, ready before the midday meal. No more than three. If they do not perform properly, I'll be back." Both servants gave him a bow as he left the stables.

Kairo gave her an encouraging smile. "They'll do fine. Your dogs always do." He left to resume his duties but Jane felt queasy. After all, she knew how the Master dealt with disgraces.

Foxes. Intelligent creatures. Fleet of foot and fighters when circumstances demanded it. Fear of an opponent did not keep them from engaging larger enemies. Her eyes perused the pack members, shifting through all her recollection of the dogs' traits, habits, characteristics, and history of past hunts. Arco the swiftest, Kazi the alpha, and Gunner the cleverest. The latter had rarely been out-tricked by prey and he lived for the praise of others. So long as Master praised him, there was nothing Gunner would not do. Master just had to praise him. Jane bit her lip.

Leaning in front of the herding breed, Jane brushed her fingers through Gunner's black coat. Black and white and shaggy, his coat was delightfully warm in the cooler seasons. Jane rubbed his ears and he hummed in pleasure. "I'm begging you Gunner, please the Master. He may not praise you during the hunt, but I promise you all the belly rubs and pork scraps in the world if you'll do what you do best during this hunt." Gunner tilted his head at the girl's sad tone. He whined, brown eyes showing concern. Jane kissed his brow. The whippet and the alpha got similar treatment just before they departed.

Kazi turned to look at her, his eyes astute, before refocusing on the hunt. The Master sat on his finest mount, a rich brown stallion and dressed in attire almost as pompous as his companions. His guests slouched with a confidence money couldn't buy and they gazed at his show of fine stock with envy and hubris. They both craved what he had and disdained him for it. There was, however, a ring of truth when they complimented his hounds and the Master sat a little straighter.

"I always make sure to raise my own hunting dogs, of course. A man who doesn't know his own dogs, isn't worth much is he? Yes, these I've selected only the finest bitches for and they've been great hunters in the past. Should sire greater hunters in the future." His ignorance and assuming undue plaudits made Jane uncomfortable. If anything should go wrong, his wrath would be double. The Master hated looking bad, especially in front of blue bloods.

The horn sounded and they left the city in pursuit of fox fur.

Jane lost her fear of the men when the hounds returned to her care, Arco limping and Gunner slavering so badly white foam drooled at the side of his mouth. She cooled them down with water and ice, careful they didn't drink so much as to be sick. Poor treatment of her dogs always fueled her rage. She startled when the stable doors banged open a second time that day, the Master ginning and sweeping his arms in elaborate, vain circles.

"And at last, here are the hounds. Fabulous beasts, if I do say so myself." His guests nodded, eyeing the beasts covetously. One pair of eyes found her and Jane patted herself on the back for not flinching.

"Who's the lass?"

"A mere servant. Nothing more," the Master said with a disinterested wave. "She just bathes and feeds the animals. Simple things really."

The guest's eyes sparkled as they read between the lines. "So she raises and trains your dogs. In a way."

The Master's grin grew a defensive edge. "I suppose you could say that. Yes."

"How much for her?" The others started, wondering how the conversation became a sale of a slave. Cupidity was half the core of her Master's soul; the other half was dedicated to business intelligence. He never valued slaves as people, but he was not blind to their uses in labor, knowledge and service skills. His grey eyes did not glance over to her but his posture hardened.

"I'm afraid she's not for sale. The dogs are too attached to her, as you can see. They've always had a weakness for females." The crowd laughed, as if sharing an inside joke and the guest let it slide, smiling, but his eyes found her again and Jane ducked her head to the dog in her lap, making a show of looking for ticks and burs.

"Yes, I can see she's very…attentive. Perhaps if the dogs grow weary of her," his voice trailed off in suggestion.

"Of course, of course. Should the dogs grow weary of her." They smiled at each other, neither wearing a genuine grin and the crowd left soon after that. Jane hugged the dog a little closer to her. Her luck with the Master, it seemed, was running out.

* * *

The beast did not stir awake at her approach any more, never opening his eyes beyond a lazy slit, breathing in her scent and then sighing it out once he verified it was her. Jane continued to clean his wounds, unable to bring bandages with which to wrap them. She wasn't even sure if the townsfolk would notice and if they did, their reactions could be inimical, not good at best. So, she made due with rags and soap and buckets of warm water. Days turning to weeks, weeks to months and now autumn was halfway gone.

She didn't really talk to him, not any thing more than short phrases in low tones. The beast visibly jumped when she began singing once. It turned to look at her, keen blue-green eyes haunting her from within the darkness. Jane's throat closed at the sight and didn't resume singing the rest of the night but the beast's gaze never left her, even as she walked away Jane felt his stare. That had been almost a week past now. Finding out his gender had been, interesting. Yes, interesting. This beast certainly had intelligence. And pride. Massive amounts of pride. When Jane inquired if he was a 'she' because of it's luscious fur coat, made a great performance of showing her just what his gender was. Jane never burned so red before and she swore he wore a smirk by the end of it. She muttered an insult under her breath then and _he_ swatted her with his tail, slapping the wet rag up into her face.

Yep, lots of pride in this one.

His wounds were mostly healed but he looked thin to her. Too thin. Jane chewed her lip in thought. If no one else was feeding him, the beast forgotten since the festivities…

Jane left her bucket in the cage and he turned to watch her go. It was unusual for her to leave before the hour prior to dawn. Every one in the Master's house was asleep, even the 'guard' but even so, Jane winced each time her foot landed on a squeaky floor board. She couldn't carry that much in her hands but bundling it up into a makeshift sack allowed for a larger portion even if she staggered beneath the weight. He was a rather large beast, after all.

It perked up at her arrival, nose flaring and drinking in deep the smell of raw meat. Jane was sure he'd be drooling if he wasn't so proud. She unwrapped it before him, but the beast only sniffed, haughtily rebuffing her tribute. Sighing, she stepped forth, catching his eye, and made a show of ripping off a piece and eating it. She chewed slowly, then getting lost in the flavors. Meat was a rare commodity for her and even raw it invoked pleasing sensations across her palate. When she opened her eyes, the beast was staring at her transfixed. For some reason Jane blushed.

"See? It's not poisoned."

It blinked a few more times at her, sniffed again at her offering and proceeded to eat. Jane beamed a smile at him. He swung around to look at her when she snuggled into his belly, a little awkwardly splayed against his side so she could see the stars.

It was a beautiful, clear sky tonight, star bright and white against the black-blue backdrop.

The flashes of a childhood stung her eyes and her voice worked to mimic her mother's. It was a poor imitation, but if Jane closed her eyes—and she dared not, not with a night this beautiful—then she could imagine her mother singing to her. For now, just her own voice would have to do. Several songs subsequently, when her voice hitched in a way that said it grew hoarse, Jane noticed how slow and resonant, almost bass-like, the beast's breathing became.

He was asleep.

Jane tilted her head to see his face. Peaceful. His scowl smoothed into something like Kazi when he was a puppy. It made Jane smile and she was careful not to make noise as she packed up her things and left. She nestled back in between the hounds again, Kazi finding her stomach and resting his head there, huffing his vexation that she continued to leave. She scratched his ears in calming circles and he hummed his delight. Sleep beckoned her, too, and Jane was not long in joining her bedmates.

A rough hand on her shoulder woke her, jarring her unpleasantly. It was Rook, the stable boy. He looked frightened but then again, he always looked scarred someone would raise their hand to beat him. It took a few years, but he relaxed more around Jane than before, though still skittish.

"The seneschal wants to see you."

Jane rubbed sleep from her eyes, muscles lethargic. Her brain battled for concentration. The head butler? She yawned.

"He wants to see you after breakfast. I can feed the dogs today," he offered.

"Thanks Rook." Her gratitude was sluggish, like the rest of her body, but nothing a slash of cold water wouldn't fix. The seneschal took not a heartbeat to look at her before sending Jane out with some matronly servants who promptly scrubbed, washed, and cleaned away her outer layer of dirt and dog smell. It took more than one bottle of shampoo and scented soap but the smells did come out, leaving her reeking of some flowery concoction. They even gave her a tunic and trousers, like the base attire squires wore in casual, very casual, settings. Jane blinked in confusion but obeyed.

The seneschal nodded to himself next time he saw her and wasted no breath with frivolous words. "The Master enjoyed the hunts over the years. Continue your work to such standards." It was as close to praise as he's ever given any servant and Jane inclined a bow. "Your service thus far has earned you this mark of promotion. You are to accompany the Master on his over night hunts."

The news sent a chill down Jane's spine. "What?"

The butler's face remained flat and unemotional. "Wash your ears properly and listen. The Master does not like to repeat himself and neither do I. You will accompany the Master on his over night hunts to take care of the hounds and whatever other tasks he asks of you. His aide will see to his personal wants but you must be ready to assume whatever chores he requests of you. We'll have to teach you numbers and letters of course—"

"I am literate. Sir," she said, tacking on the polite moniker at the end through slightly ground teeth. Surprise came across his face but that was the only emotion he showed. She had not always been in this position and she held onto those memories viscously, even fostering knowledge and memories outside this house to sustain her. One day, she'd get out. One day, she would not longer be here. But that was far in the future and Jane held no illusions presently. Until then, she'd amass knowledge and keep her head down.

The seneschal nodded again, and that was that. He reviewed her duties and rehashed again and again the etiquette and mannerisms expected of her. Like the Master, the butler did not accept disgraces to the house. She was to bath regularly now, at least every three days. Jane kept her head down and nodded. As it was, her promotion did not go unnoticed and not all the other slaves viewed her gains kindly. Some of her greetings went unanswered but Jane merely bit her lip and sought no confrontation. The set of clothing was undyed and the pants one size too big—she had to pull the strings ridiculously tight—but it was better than her previous outfit.

The cook gave her a second glance at dinner, taking in the bathed scents though his eyes caught her lack of shoes. Still a slave. He jerked her nod and handed her the standard bowl of soup and bread. Cook ruled these kitchens and he didn't take brawls at this table, slave or servant or freeman. Nevertheless, Jane ate that night in the stables after taking scraps for her dogs and treats for the younger ones. That night she doesn't go to the beast's cage, staying with her dogs, hugging Kazi next to her for heat, security, and comfort. He stayed near her but his head is up, alert as if listening for dangers, throughout the night and his teeth flash at shadows and sounds.

_Just like his grandmother_, Jane hazily thinks before drifting off to sleep.

Her heart doesn't let her stay away from the beast for long. Confusion wages war when future hunts gain her trinkets, insignificant to the Master but imbued with meaning for one of her status. A comb, regular access to the bathing facilities—soap! shampoo!—little canisters of beeswax, and a vest and gloves for the winter months. But no shoes, never shoes, so she continues to bind her feet with cloth in the snowy times of the year like all her ilk and Jane believes this fact alone keeps their ire at bay. It doesn't matter that she shares her good fortune. The gardener who always gets crackled and bloodied skin under the sun and Jane gives him a generous helping of beeswax for his lips and skin each time she sees him. She sneaks soap out to wash the little ones and they get less sick, their wounds less likely to get infected and even brushes the children's hair, giving the girls braids if it's long enough or cutting the boys' spiky heads into something "fierce".

Tidbits of kindness that people all took yet did not always reciprocate. So when one of the older servants—one who bought his freedom and lived as a reminder for what could be—came up to her, silently holding up a pair of suspenders, Jane beamed and launched herself to hug the old man. He chuckled, patting her head like she was his own granddaughter, and returned to his post. The suspenders worked much better than the strings along her waist.

Still, the gifts from the house unnerved her and she's visiting the cage again, carrying the meat in her knapsack. Jane made sure he never went hungry. The hounds had tricks besides hunting and tracking and balancing treats on their noses. Finn carried messages and goods from the stables to wherever she was, much like a courier and as he got older he became grouchier but he performed his duties well and Jane knew he wouldn't confront the beast. Finn dropped off the food, just a few steps outside the cage but within the creature's ability to use one paw to drag it back in. The beast stares at her and then, in a great big show of petulance, turns his back on her, showing only his rump.

Jane couldn't help it—she laughed.

He was grumpy and mad at her. He laughter only vexed him further and one of his hind legs pushed her out of the cage. Jane bowled over with laughter now, smothering it with both hands in case someone should hear and wander over. Trouble hates nothing as much as a smile, and this beast was most certainly trouble. Regaining her breath, though peppered with giggles and ear-to-ear smiles, Jane sat up.

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd miss me. I missed you, too; I just let myself be distracted with other thoughts. I'm sorry." She spoke softly and speaking to the beast wasn't weird but it had that gawky quality people assume when talking to strangers. Her stiff speech acquired a more natural flow the longer she talked and Jane found she liked talking to him. He listened well, even as he continued to sulk.

"You probably can smell the difference and are undoubtedly grateful for it. My master was pleased with my work—I take care of his dogs, I have since I was taken in—and so I've been receiving trinkets. Little things to him but much valued by people in, in my position. I'm a slave you know." The beast didn't react and Jane appreciated that. "Of course you don't have such a barbaric custom where you're from, I'm sure, but here slavery plunders on. The Master gave me a comb and the seneschal told me to grow out my hair. It, it kind of makes me nervous. Their attention. I'd prefer not to be noticed. To quietly gain my freedom. I fear that may no longer be the case. I'll be going on hunts with him and his," she chewed around for a judicious word, "companions. Nobles. I don't like nobles. They take what they want with no care or concern for how their actions affect others." She had the beast's attention now. "Just look at you. They took you, you who did them no wrong just so that they could feel mighty." Jane coughed out a laugh. "Barbaric."

She looked around the cage. No lock or mechanism that she could see. Nothing that Jane could lift or unlatch to free him. She bowed her head. "I'm sorry. I don't even know how to free you."

The beast rumbled something, nudging her with his large head. Jane leaned into his bodily heat. He was magnificent. Elk-like antlers, maybe more reindeer-ish, antlers sat atop his cranium as proud as a ram's horns. Four points were broken or snapped off, undoubtedly from the chase. They looked thick and strong, capable of gorging a charging bull or boar. His coat thicken and fluffed up to its winter potential, a beautiful grey-white collage with alternating shades of light and dark and intersected with thin patches of ebony. Under no conditions could Jane hope to lift one of his paws—he was lean, still, too bony she thought, but his form did not beget weakness. Sometimes Jane wondered why he didn't just break the cage. Then her mind's eye flashed the wards. Of course. Magic.

"I feel bad referring you as, well, you. You should have a name. What's your name?" There was a beat of pause and Jane flushed red. "Right, can't talk. I can give you a name.

"Fluffy." One of those same paws poked her in the stomach and Jane wheezed out all her breath at the force. "Sourpuss. I should call you that out of spite." His green eyes were not amused but Jane caught a smirk, she thought it was a smirk, tipping up his muzzle.

"Fine, not Fluffy. I can name you Spot or Reindeer Dog or—" He rumbled a warning and Jane huffed. "Like you have any better ideas." The fur around his collar bristled as if he lacked ideas, good ideas thank you very much. "I'd love to hear these ideas, God of Reindeer Dogs." He let that one slide as he was thinking. He nodded to one of the it torches.

"Kaunaz? You want your name to be Kaunaz?" Jane tested the name on her tongue, raising a skeptical brow at her companion. "You're hardly a light in a dark tunnel, though I guess you're acceptably smart." He snorted at her then, his nose thrust into her belly and squishing her into his side. Jane giggled and scratched the top of his muzzle. He grumbled, pulling away to make it easier on her to breath but butting her when she stopped petting him.

Jane told him about other things—the dogs she raised, what their traits were, whom she favored, the alpha of the pack, what the Master's house was like, what her life was like—but Jane shied from darker, heavier topics. This was the first 'conversation' she's had with him and she didn't want it to be marred by unpleasant things. A yawn tore through her throat, cutting off her explanation of how she got these suspenders. Jane rubbed her eyes. It was time for sleep. She promised to return and told him not to attack any dog courier carrying his food and tapped her foot until he grunted what was grumbling assent. She hugged his chest goodbye and promised once more to come back and see him soon.

He watched her go and when she disappeared behind a building, "Kaunaz" flexed and rolled his spine, closing his eyes for concentration. His reserves were still low. He had to stay longer than he thought. _But_, he inhaled the scent of dogs, flowers, soap and her, _it is not all bad._

She came back on the first day of snow, cheeks red as apples behind her scarf. She wore a vest and two layers of tunics but that wasn't good enough for the cold, he saw her shivering but still she came and smiled at him.

"Hey Kaunaz." A silly name, but he supposed it would have to do for now. "I brought you a real treat." Indeed she had and Kaunaz couldn't believe she managed to carry it. A leg of venison fresh with blood fell before him but Kaunaz did not eat it. He growled at the intruder. The girl turned to look behind her and smacked—smacked!—his muzzle.

"Be nice," she warned. As if she could honestly threaten him. "He helped me carry it. Baldur is strong and I couldn't carry this all by myself." Hearing his name the cop crept closer albeit cautiously. He stared Kaunaz down, analyzing and watchful. If he should harm his pack mate, Baldur would charge.

Kaunaz sat straighter. A mere dog should not dare to challenge him, caged or not. Jane ignored or was ignorant of the tension. From the corner of his eye he saw her leave and give the dog such affection. She never looked at him thus. Kaunaz suddenly felt spiteful of this canine and curled his lips back to reveal many teeth. The cur dared disregard his presence, focusing on the female human. She petted and coddled him, rubbing all his tender spots and murmuring words of love. Kaunaz's spite became physical form in a discontented growl. He did not like sharing his things. Baldur's hackles, in turn, rose and he growled right back. In the back of Kaunaz's mind, he complimented this dog for valor, foolish valor that would get him killed, but not all had the temerity to challenge him. It was another shock then, when the female wound on him with a vehement stare.

"Don't think about it Kaunaz. I will brook no violence on your part."

The beast seethed. Her help made him heal faster and he wished not to linger in this primitive city. He would stay just long enough to turn it to ash for its inhabitants trespasses but not a lingering fortnight. He supposed he could let this girl live. The very least he wouldn't go out of his way to kill her, although casualties and consequences were a part of battle.

She fetched the dog a bone from her same knapsack and the canine was content to let his caretaker be. Kaunaz expected her to leave then. She was full of surprises, this one. Back into the cage she came, cuddling into his side. Part of him wanted to push her away, rebuff her presence for the slight she gave him; instead, he watched her. As usual, she turned her gaze to the sky and in moments was telling him about the celestial mythology her own father told her as a child. She spoke of him with incredible love, as if he never really died, and as long as she kept his memory going a part of him her father continued to live. Kaunaz envied a part of that. The only family he enjoyed was his mother and on occasion his brother. Father, yet not his father, that man he preferred not to dwell on. Even when not singing her timbre was lullaby-like, calm and quiet. Loud enough just to be heard and when it diminished you leaned in, yearning to hear more. Kaunaz realized she had been quiet for some time and opened his eyes to look at her. She did not look at him, keeping her gaze on the stares but he could smell the sadness, the loneliness.

"They died. Sick as I recall. A bad harvest and infestation of rodents that year and of all possibilities, they died yet I lived. Many people perished or grew sick and feeble. Many lost their wealth or means of income. Farmers too weak to plow the fields, laborers who couldn't lift heavy packages. There were many stories like that. So, when my landlord needed extra income, he was sly enough to find it. My parents had no relatives, not within the city at the time, but their house was their own. Bought and paid for. I learned might is not right but those are the rules of this city. The landlord had the might and just enough legal prowess—a bribe—to confiscate the house and all it housed. I became a possession, no more a person. He wanted to keep me but one of the Master's servants was going around buying folk. They needed more workers and workers were cheap those time. Sick, weak workers but so cheap and if you spent a little time feeding them, sometimes they'd get better. Lots of profits to be made in such a market.

"So I was traded. It was winter then." The girl's eyes followed the snow, waiting until the snowflake crashed to earth and then found another in the throes of gravity. Kaunaz supposed that is why he was getting this brief biography. His tail shifted around his leg, draping over her to provide warmth. It'd be inconvenient for her to die now. She petted his tail, breaking her focus on the precipitation for marvel over his handsome figure. Kaunaz preened at the thought. She turned back to the snowflakes after a few moments.

"Chance threw me into the stables instead of with the washing women, learning to weave or cook or other the other domestic tasks then. The hound master at the time was old and he thought me a boy." A rueful smile tugged at her. "I was dirty enough I suppose. Short hair, too." Her fingers made pleasant strokes along his underbelly. "He never learned my name, just called me boy and I was scared of being sent back to the kitchens so I never told him. He died by the time I was ten, perhaps less than, and he taught me the hounds well enough that I managed on my own. They've been my family ever since."

He caught her eye and held it. There was more to that story there. Women do not raise dogs, not here. Here women are domestics, thus, she was an anomaly and anomalies have stories. His blue-green eyes sparkled at the insight. The girl gave a shallow gulp, looking away.

"Some other time, perhaps," she mumbled. He curled tighter around her. He wanted the story now. She made to move but his bulk held her down. She rumbled his "name" in warning and he wanted to laugh now. A wisp of a women, human, trying to intimidate him. Oh, what fun. She proved a slippery little thing, squeezing and squirming out from his back legs and vaulted in between the bars before he could catch her. Well, wasn't she just full of surprises.

Kaunaz showed all his teeth in a grin. Baldur took his post in front of her. She soothed him with an ear rub and soft words. The dog leaned into her touch and obeyed. This girl did have a way with dogs, perchance she told him truths. She left then, Kaunaz watching as she turned the corner. He enjoyed surprises.

* * *

The hoarfrost of winter churned and stiffened to knee-deep snowfall and Kaunaz was left, forgotten, in the town square, pushed off to the side and let be. Everyone was huddled around their fires, keeping warm and eating and drinking and staying indoors. Everyone but her. She—Jane—visited him in the night, telling stories, telling experiences, telling him about her life's ambitions. Freedom. She was close. Closer than before any way. The Master used hunting as a means to entertain his blue-blooded guests and winter did not stop them from chasing stags and rabbits and foxes and any other creature not hibernating until spring. One time she was going to be gone for weeks so she brought him a feast and told him of her departure. There was no acknowledgement at the time but Kaunaz did not enjoy his solitude during that period. Not like his used to.

She had become a bantering acquaintance, teasing him, reading to him from pilfered—"borrowed"—books and even brushing his coat on one occasion. He made her repeat the measure every week since. He loved being groomed and looking neat. Internally, Kaunaz shuddered as to how bad he smelled. Nothing a simple spell couldn't rectify but he was amassing his magic for a grand finale and he would not waste his scheme on pride. Not this time. Besides, his visitor smelled sufficiently pleasurable to make up for the fact he hasn't bathed since before his capture.

That night was a book night, reading to him a tale even he was not familiar with but one he found engaging. War and terror over a throne by two brothers, it was a tale made all the sadder by that love the siblings continued to hold for one another despite despicable acts they committed. Before their eyes lay the destruction they blasted upon the other but close their eyes and each saw and felt better childhood times, wishing so much for peace as they waged war. How poignant a tale. Kaunaz shuddered at the similarities. She closed the book at the last ten pages and recited it from memory. Although the story was not a happy tale, it had a happier ending, if only for the two brothers. Kaunaz was, therefore, immensely pleased when she recited what her people called "the Paradox Poem". It contradicted itself in every line and Kaunaz relished in the ordered chaos of it all.

In winter Jane could not afford to stay long, the nights too cold for her despite her vest and Kaunaz's body heat. "Be a good boy," she often told him at her departure, smiling as he grunted an eye roll. Her scarf dangled unbound from her neck, packing her things when Baldur hugged close to her and growled. Jane looked up to see a man staring. He hustled over to her, his face an image of concern but something in his smile made her gut churn.

"You should not be so close. That's a dangerous beast young lady." That voice sounded familiar. Jane ducked her head in a bow and kept her gaze from him.

"Thank you kind sir, but I'm alright." Jane turned to leave but the man was in front of her. Behind her, Jane heard Kaunaz shift.

"It would be a shame for this barbaric beast to mar that pretty face of yours. It would not do for one of Mister Quinn's servants to be injured. You do wonders with those dogs. I don't think I've ever seen such remarkable hounds." He spoke easily, eloquent and comfortable despite being so near the very beast he warned her was dangerous. "I must say, this seems an odd destination, especially given the hour." His question was light, almost off-hand. Jane ducked her head lower, knowing just how bad a liar she was.

"Sometimes, at odd hours, the dogs get restless. I take them out for a stroll to soothe their nerves, stretch their legs. He was just curious as to the creature's smell." Not entirely a lie. Some nights she did have to walk the dogs at odd hours and, initially, they were curious about the beast's smell. Because that smell was all over her. That curiosity over the months lessened to an extent as she continued to visit Kaunaz.

"Is that so? Well, I would hardly be a gentleman if I didn't escort you the rest of the night through your walk. There are dangers out this time of night." His posture was amicable, open, but Jane shied away.

"I thank you for your offer, but—"

"I insist." He was less than a step from her personal space and she within an arm's length of the man. Jane shivered not from the cold and her voice floundered to find a reason to leave. Alone.

The cage rattle ominously, the man whipping his attention to the beast's foreleg that struck the bars, sendings pallid yellow spikes of magic at the contact. Jane used the distraction to bolt, Baldur at her heels not a heartbeat later. She didn't stop running until she was in the stables, safe behind locked doors and cocooned in her pile of hounds and panting for breath and clarity. Whatever that was, she didn't want to know.

Jane did not visit Kaunaz or send dogs carrying sustenance to him for many nights, risking only brief visits at the break of dawn under the pretense of going into town for supplies. Kaunaz was not happy with her but Jane put him out of her mind, focusing on dogs and freedom. Tunneling her vision helped get her through the days at the cost of blinding her to events around her.

Spring battled with winter for dominance, swelling some days with warmth and losing others to a bitter chill that bit deep into people's bones. It was on one of the warmer days Jane got thrown into the town's fountain and that piece at least could be considered good luck. The Master was in a rage, other servants trying to calm him down to no effect. Jane was walking the Master's house dog, an easy light target in reach. He grabbed for her, rattled her worse than a thirsty drunkard pounding on a tavern's door, his words lost as he choked and waved her about, finally pitching her into the fountain. One of the servants cooled down their master when Jane came up sputtering for air. Those who noticed turned to stare. Everything stuck to her figure and wrapping her arms around her self did little to abate the effect. Of all possible people to make eye contact with, Jane found that same guest running covetous eyes over her form, but he was not the only one. Two unnaturally bright blue-green eyes smoldered from the sidelines. A youthful fellow, an older friend of Rook's, took off his jacket for her and Jane sneezed out a thank you.

Jane shook her head to try and clear out some of the water, her voice raspy. "What happened?" The young man sighed, showing his unease and fatigue, but spoke low. "Master's ambitions." He need not say any more, but he did. "Sorry, hound master." Jane stopped squeezing out her hair to face him. He looked guilty for being the bearer of bad news but bore it well for such a young man. "They plan to finish the hunt—hunting the beast—this spring and the nobles 'offered'—sacrificing really—the Master's hunting hounds. I saw what that thing did to the other dogs who came too close. I'm, I'm truly sorry."

She saw what that beast had done too, the dogs shred to ribbons but, he was so calm now, and her dogs gave him food, cautiously of course, but, but to sacrifice her family for pride? Jane locked her knees to remain standing.

"Why was the master angry?" He didn't prize these hounds, not like she and he could always buy more, have her train more, rebuild his stock. Why the anger?

The youth chewed his lip, swallowed his unease and did not prolong her suffering. "Because they, the nobles, are taking his dogs for the hunt. And you, the hound master. To be returned afterwards, of course. But he is not to accompany them in their pursuit of the beast." Jane could no longer stand, or hear, or breath, or think.

People in power, how they abused her. A shudder worked through her body at the image of that guest, the man whose name she didn't know but whose face was clear as day. He was a noble. He would be there. And so would she. Alone. The Master was cruel and possessive but he did not cross that one line every slave feared. On some level, he had principles to which he adhered. More than likely, that guest had no such qualms.

"The master said no?" The hope in her voice made her want to cringe and the older boy winced.

"If it matters, he argued." He was not being unkind with his words. Nobles, men in power, they took what they wanted, and the Master's possessiveness over his property—for that is what she was—offered a cold solace. Jane nodded her understanding and the boy helped her to her feet, him being not much younger than her though significantly taller and stronger. The walk back to the house was silent and lonely in spite of the person at her side. She had to do something, was a vague notion in her mind swamped by dread.

Spring.

Jane gained a sudden hatred of the day's warm weather. She wanted eternal cold and snow, a perpetual blizzard, a miracle to keep her family alive. Because that is what it would take, a miracle or a tragedy. The beast's premature death, perhaps?

_But, he didn't do anything wrong. He's just trying to live._ Part of her heart didn't care, not enough to sacrifice her hounds. For the first time in a long time, Jane cried herself to sleep. _Oh, please, let this be a nightmare. Let me wake up._

It was a nightmare, one she lived.

Down in the town square, Kaunaz saw Jane emerge from that fountain, instincts swirling to the surface. His magic hummed to life, strong, bright and green. The magical guards along the cage crackled in respond and Kaunaz burned away the cheap magic.

Spring gave him vitality. Energy. Power. He could tear apart this pathetic metal box like a child crushing flimsy cardboard. But not yet. He wanted to await night, when his visitor was due. One passerby came close and spat in his direction.

Hatred, hot and violent, snaked into his visage. The man, middle-aged, clumsy, and dressed in such a fashion that impressed none but his other, simple-minded mortals, flinched from what he saw and scurried away. For so long he played the good captive; it was time these mortals saw the monster beneath the mask and learned, once more, to fear and respect his kind. The beast buried head into his front paws in case a by stander perceive the change. No one else noticed and "Kaunaz" smirked. After tonight, this city would burn.

Jane did not show that night. Or the next, or the day after that. Not for many nights. Kaunaz snarled, his magic boiling as furious as he was over her disloyalty. _That stupid little slave girl had audacity to forgo him? And for what? Did that man claim her?_ The beast gnashed his teeth at the thought. If she wouldn't see him, then fine. He'd set the city ablaze and her along with it. It was not quite night, the sun rimming the horizon a bloody orange red and people still crowded the outside.

_Perfect_.

The beast flexed his shoulders once, twice and the bars groaned under the magical strain, snapping with precise metal flicks, and then just for flair, he shattered the rest of the cage in an explosive show of magic. People were already screaming and running. Kaunaz breathed deep, drinking in the chaos and his magic spiked again in response, wanting very much to frolic and play and wreck havoc. Soldiers with lances and spears ran to the center, looking for the cause and paling when they saw him, free and strong and untold preternatural ability gushing from his every pore. He enjoyed their screams, their pains, their deaths. _Just like old times._

The green fire surged outward, seeking anything resembling fuel and the screams grew. The beast grew bored with only his canine form and green magic washed over him, flowing away to reveal a man. He wandered, killing as his pleasure against those faces he remembered and he never forgot a face. He found the man who spat at him and particularly enjoyed his torment. His pace was lazy, unhurried, avoiding the slums for the smell and filth, instead going to the wealthy district with large house and scents of opulence and power and money. People were bottle necking the city gates and he did not stop them. Let them run and spread their fear.

The fourth house he found him. A noble, young by his standards, not so young by theirs, and the man's eyes narrowed when recognition hit. The fool thought him a vagabond and took up arms against him. Thin, skeletal fingers flattened his esophagus, leaving just enough air to wheeze in and out for a slow death. The man twisted and grappled, fighting death to ill effect. The man smiled, watching him squirm so. The roar of the fire consuming the city was distant but his pumping blood, the thrill of this, echoed in his ears. It had been too long.

"God and ghouls, what are you?"

The man sneered at the man asphyxiating before him. "Still capable of speech, hmm? Some would call that impressive. Not I. I am far, far above you mortal, and you should know better than to touch what is mine." The man sagged against his fingers, limp and moments later growing cold. He tossed him aside. He forgot about her initially. Perhaps she was still alive. If she was… He grinned. How did they like being hunted?

He remembered her smell well though the smoke and carnage blurred most things together. He sighed, an impatient flick of his wrist weaving together a rudimentary tracking spell. Man form or not, he quickly covered the distance to find her in the stables.

Jane tucked a few more things into her knapsack, barking orders to the pack to gather the puppies. Arco was on her third trip running puppies too young to survive on their own past the city gates where other pack members lay in wait. She tied another sack onto one of the omegas, whatever foodstuff she could manage, and sent him running with two body guards. Most likely people would not bother dogs, carrying things or not. People just wanted to escape and that is exactly what she and her family were doing. Kazi and some of his strongest circled the pack, attacking strangers and growling away potential thieves. Jane slipped a short knife into a side pocket and flint into her pack. She tightened the laces on her boots. Good to go.

There was a prickling sensation tickling her neck and she had no time to contemplate why or what when Kazi and his beta looped closer to her, snarling at the intruder, the other dogs falling in line as their commander dictated.

A man. Tall, very tall, but then she was so short. Dressed in leather and armor, mostly black with splashes of green and gold. His gait suggested an imperial upbringing but there was a predatory shadow to everything he did, including his smile. Jane stopped breathing when she found his eyes. Stormy blue green and wickedly delighted. How she knew the latter, Jane did not know and didn't want to know how she knew. She stamped down the apprehension leaking into every limb.

"Take what you want. We're leaving."

"You found your freedom, you suppose." Eloquent, rich as molten chocolate and authoritative—he sounded casual; he sounded dangerous. Jane swallowed.

"I, I will offer you no trouble. They won't attack unless I say so, so back off and we'll leave in peace." Green flames blundered up the hill, licking at the sides of buildings, finding them to its liking as it consumed and consumed and consumed as it worked its way up the hill. The rising heat made her sweat while the rising smoke stung her lungs. Jane coughed.

"Look it's dangerous to stay."

"Danger did not stop you before."

Jane squinted at the man, the smoke now getting into her eyes as the fire got closer. "I don't know—"

"You did call me by a different name and I wore a different body then, but I assure you I am one and the same." He ignored the snarling canines, as is five large threatening dogs could do him no harm. Jane hoped he was merely foolish and not confident within reason. She backpedaled slowly to the rear entrance, the dogs reading her motions and stepping in time with her but always guarding. Baldur advanced when the man got to close, running up and snapping at his calves. His opponent was quick as a whistle, leaping precisely and kicking the dog back. Baldur whined, hobbling and leaning into his ribs.

"No!" Jane shouted but the damage was done. Her pack, her family, charged to defend their fallen comrade. His face showed monstrous delight in hurting her dogs. Jane made to run past him, aiming for Kazi but his fingers latched onto her bicep and no amount of struggling loosened his grip.

"Let go!"

He laughed at her attempts. "You'll find it's not so easy to escape me in this form. Though I am still impressed how well your body can turn in tight spaces." He hinted at an answer Jane was terrified to verify. One of her hands slapped his open check. The impact stung her palm but Jane scowled at him.

"I told you not to hurt them. Go away!"

He flexed his jaw. "Still full of surprises. Oh, I like you. I'll like you very much, I think. But I'd prefer you to call me my real name and not 'torch'." He smiled at her, all teeth, all unnaturally sharp. "Loki. Call me Loki."

Fear curdled inside her stomach and Jane felt sick. "What?"

The man sighed, releasing her arm and made his way to the horse's stalls. He reached for an apple, relishing its crisp taste. Jane ran immediately for Kazi, the dog struggling to stand and defend its caretaker, its true master. "I know you're smarter than this. Surely you've put the pieces together." Jane hugged her dog close.

"You're Kaunaz? You, You're the beast? But, why…?" Jane shook her head negatively. "Fine, you have your freedom. Take it and go. Leave us alone."

Loki swallowed the last bite, tossing the core over his shoulder. "Jane. Jane, Jane, Jane. Your people did a disservice—a cruelty—to me. Don't you think I deserve recompense?"

"You're burning the city to the ground! Probably killed half a dozen, may be more, people in the process. Revenge was yours." Jane now stood in front of her dogs, trying in vain to protect them from this beast-turned man. Loyal to their bones, the dogs croaked out growls and barks and vain threats with each step he took. Jane grew panicked the closer she got, claustrophobic distress darkening the edges of her vision.  
"Wait, wait, wait! If this is all you wanted, then, then why tolerate me at all? Why bother?" Wounded as they were, Jane herded them to the back exit, slipping them out as she distracted this predator. Only the alpha remained and he would not, would never leave her. Loki bore a cruel smirk that edged into a shark's grin. He acted flippantly, as if the smoke were not rising and the fire not burning. Jane fought for clarity in a haze.  
"Truly, I cared not for you. Not in the beginning but healing takes time and I needed time. You accelerated that process with your kindness. I must thank you for that. If not for you, I could not have accomplished this." He swept his arms wide. He liked to gloat, monologue. Good. That gave Jane time to stall, to get away. She shifted closer to the door. "At least, not this soon. After that, I suppose you became a curiosity." With a lovely, berceuse for a voice. A voice that should sing to me every night. Yes, Loki liked that idea. He moved quick enough to grab her, eliciting a startled yelp from her, eyes wide and wary. Her fear smelled divine. The dog made to move but even through her fear Jane cared for her dogs and commanded his restraint. Loki pulled her close, almost touching, almost hugging her. "After that, you became mine. I find that fair recompense for your people's trespasses, don't you?"

Jane dug deep for courage, more like foolishness, and hissed at this man-beast creature. "I did not trade one collar for another."  
"Oh, Jane. What makes you think you have a choice?" He forgot she was naturally left-handed. It found the knife from her sack and the blade whistled by his throat, leaving a bloody mess. Loki roared his displeasure. Canine and human bolted, neither wishing to stay and see what new ways his ire expressed itself when pushed. Loki pressed a hand to the would, feeling the blood pump out with each heartbeat.  
That mere mortal kept getting the drop on him and his insides oscillated between attraction and rage. The latter colored his timbre when he bellowed out the human's name, a howl that clamored with his magic sending the green flames hotter and higher. Loki bared his teeth, feeling them elongate and the cramping spasm as his bones shifted. Prior to the change his hand sizzled with magic, healing the cut but leaving his hand sticky with blood. His face shifted and grew out at his mouth and nose, a half muzzle speckled with fur. All his dark hair shuddered into white and grey where only thin wisps of black remained and his eyes blazed with magic and fury. Jane's name snarled into a howl, a call for the hunt, and down in the city, Jane begged her feet to go faster.

.


	2. Chapter 2

**General editing done. **

**Hawkz**

* * *

_A Kindness: Chapter 2**  
**_

Plenty of people raged against the fire and chaos with reason, even cool-headed clarity through random fits of panic and despair. Disciplined soldiers engaged thieves and vagabonds with ruthless efficiency, some charging the beast when glimpses of his shadowy self walked past. This was their home and they would defend it. Citizens rushed with water and sand, trying in vain to douse the flames, save their homes, their lives, all their efforts. Some acted thus, but others—most—found the call of chaos a siren they could not deny. Maleficence beckoned them and they, dutiful acolytes, performed in her honor.

Jane focused not on them, not on any of them. Not on the few faces she recognized—Kairo, Rook, the seneschal—and many pairs of eyes clouded with death. Those that blinked scurried about fearfully, tearfully, shoving for safety and life same as her. She had been kind, she was kind, "weak", and it taught her freedom blessed only the strong. It's what she chanted as a prayer against the horrors before her but each repeated phrase fostered a sour taste on her tongue, doubling on top of one another until her stomach roiled, nauseated. How, Jane didn't know, but she heard a blubbery cry over the din and her eyes caught sight of a rapidly rising and falling chest, struggling to survive.

Kazi barked at her: Staying was dangerous. Sorrow and shame ripped through her. Her mother would have countless aphorisms for her next course of action; Jane only had one: Old habits die hard. And apparently they would be the death of her.

Dammit, she swore. Jane urged the alpha on, running to the body. Small, fragile, and scared. His attire, his shoes or lack thereof, his birth—-he boy should not be condemned to die, alone and afraid, when an act of kindness on her part could spare him regardless his station. Jane lacked the strength to life all the rubble off him, doing what she could. Kazi paced around, ears attentive and fur bristling defensively. He did not leave pack.

The boy's eyes were wild and he flinched from her. "It's okay. It's okay, little one. I'm not going to hurt you." Despite the cacophony bouncing around them, Jane spoke in mellow tones, offering him a lopsided half-smile and gentle fingers combed back his bangs. Tears ran down his face as this stranger gave him solace. He didn't even know her yet she came for him. The woman made to leave and he scrambled to snag her sleeve.

"Please," he croaked, "please don't leave me."

"Shh, shh. It's alright. I'm not going to leave you, but I have to find something to get this marble slab off you. I can't lift it on my own. I'll be within shouting distance. This is Kazi. He will protect you." Kazi was not happy about being further than three feet from her but she was the leader. He may be the alpha but she was the heart of the pack and a direct command from her he could not disobey.

Brick, marble and charred wood littered the streets as buildings turned to ruin. A ghoulish howl rang in the distance, Jane's skin going white with fright. She knew who that howl belonged to and whatever was keeping him busy couldn't distract him indefinitely. She worked faster, desperate to find a beam or shovel for leverage and then run. Her body begged her to run, to flee, to live. Her throat was too dry for swallowing and the longer Jane focused on the physical manifestations of fear the sooner she'd drown in the sensation. Best not to think at all. Focus on the task. Focus on helping the boy.

The wood was not especially sturdy so they'd have to pray it lasted long enough for him to escape from under the stone slab. Digging it under the rubble, Jane counted aloud, both struggling to dislodge the boy's led. When Kazi gripped the child's collar with his teeth, tugging in time with the boy, he wiggled free just as the piece of timber snapped. Jane wiped at the sweat on her forehead, smiling triumphantly. Talk about luck.

The roar was closer now. Much closer.

The boy tripped and stumbled to her side, big watery eyes showing the whites of his eyes as he thought of just what sort of creature made such sounds.

She had such crap luck.

"Time to go," she said. Neither Kazi or the boy needed more prompting, although the latter balked when he saw their escape route.

"You want to go through there?" His verbalizations knocked into squeaky, scandalized octaves. Jane wasted no time hoisting him up by the collar with strength fueled by adrenaline and a rush of endorphins too potent for a body in stasis.  
"Hold your breath," she told him and then threw him into the sewers without as much a by-your-leave, Kazi jumping in after him. The ground shook, throwing her off balance and to her knees as though a huge weight crashed from above. Jane risked a glance.

He did not look happy, a few nicks from spears and arrow shafts protruded from his hide but brute strength bunched his muscles into a coil ready to spring at a moment's command. His growl warned her not to. Jane had just enough time as she jumped down the chute to fist her fingers into an unkind gesture at the beast. Loki's roar of discontented rancor echoed down the shaft after her, ringing with promise.

The sewers were bloated from the destruction of an aqueduct above funneling water below at torrential rates. At the cost of burning lungs, Jane closed her mouth before she hit the water. The current's cataract thrashed her up and under, side to side in somersaults and her body thrown in contortions until it spat her into a river at an unknown juncture. She coughed and spat out water, weak limbs slapping at the surface but succeeded not in reaching the shore. Jane continued to drift, bobbing below the water until panic and survival instincts compelled her body into motion. A collapsed, rotten tree betided to be her salvation, its branches and trunk jutted out half-submerged across the water way. After a kick and two, Jane hauled herself up, shivering and soaked.

Bones gone to jelly and muscles now molasses it was a battle making it to shore but Jane was nothing if not a fighter. The tide lapped at her feet though Jane did not worry about high-tide, not from a river; besides, she had not the stamina to crawl further up. Everything was hazy and water-logged and she was tired, so very tired. Each blink her eyes stayed shut a few milliseconds longer until they didn't reopen, her breathing rhythmic as one in sleep.

Of all the woodland creatures to wake her it was a doe chewing on a lock of her hair. Jane blinked once, twice, trying to sort her thoughts and yesterday's memories but got only dots of images, sounds, and feelings—everything still hurt by the way—that required her to draw conclusive sketches.

The beast. Kaunaz.

Kaunaz who was not a beast, and not her friend.

Kazi and the pack. Running. Fleeing.

Freedom.

Almost.

The beast—he called himself a name, a name not Kaunaz—tried to take her freedom from her. Pique stirred in her breast—how dare he try to take something so precious from her?—but the fatigue quashed that fire in advance of it building into anything beyond an irritated thought. Jane exhaled and laid back down, the doe's ear flickering in her direction but no more. At least it wasn't eating her hair anymore. Jane rubbed her eyes, pushing out the remnants of sleep and bringing back the memories in a rush.

The beast-turned-man claiming her. The knife.

Helping the boy.

Getting separated from her family.

The last thought made her eyes sting with tears not from sleep.

"Kazi! Gunner? Arco! Baldur? Mosey-Rosey?" she shouted, wincing at her hoarse voice but forcing the yells and whistles out and loud as she could. A timid sip of the river water told her it was sweet and fresh, which boded equally well and ill. The water did her throat good and she drank past the protestations of a swelled stomach yet shy of retching. However, this meant she traveled into a more remote part of the land than she planned. Who knows where her pack was?

Jane sighed and racked a hand through sand-speckled hair. It brought back recollections of how she got here and Jane made a face. Gross. She'd wash up. Wash up and face all the obstacles that dare impede her life's goals. Crying would get her nowhere. Save the tears for when she met her family, saw the little ones hale and whole, and for when Kazi kissed her face until it dripped drool. Now demanded a stout heart, action, assessment. Jane would go from there.

She still had her knapsack, and Jane dumped out the contents for inventory. Anything not in a jar or sealed container was spoiled—strips of jerky and dried herbs—but other things she could wash and clean for reuse. Her comb, bottles of soap and shampoo she pilfered and had planned to sell, some coins and clothing, the knife, flint, a short measure of rope, along with a couple of baubles. Jane went to work, washing herself and the pack's contents. For the last time, she smelled flowery albeit with an undertone of vanilla. It was best not to get too attached to smelling thus. She wasn't going to take scented baths again. Having clean hair after swimming where she's been was a sweet bit of serendipity.

The water and washing revived her and Jane called for her family again. No response. The deer departed during her bath, leaving her unquestionably alone. Jane shifted from foot to foot, biting her lip. This was not past of her plan. She cursed the beast for his interference. What's worse, she did not know these woods. Or maybe it wasn't so bad. The river flowed north, bringing her close to the mountains and thereby her destination, the northern woods. It also meant she was far from the city—a place she planned to never return to—but the river masked her scent, making it difficult for Dreyfuss to track. Jane re-shouldered her pack; if they didn't find her, then she'd find them.

Raising hunting dogs meant learning about the outdoors, the woods, how to navigate them, and Jane figured out the cardinal directions, heading northeast and thereby away from that wretched city. It would be a long circuitous route but Jane wished not to risk meeting soldiers or refugees or…it from the city. A shiver racked her frame despite the dry clothing and springtime weather; Jane denied the possibility. The beast had its freedom and she had hers. Their ties ended in that city. It only wanted her as a petty form of revenge against those who slighted it and would waste no time looking for her.  
Focus on your family Jane, she told herself and steadied her steps. Focus. One step at a time. Exhaustion would leave her defenseless—a potentially deleterious situation to be in given her status as a single traveler—so she never walked too late in the day, internally measuring the lactic acidic throbbing in her legs as a standard of time. Her meals she consumed on the go, foraging edible plants as they passed her route and sucked on honeysuckle and pebbles to keep her mouth moist as water was precious. An unguarded nest of duck eggs was a lucky feast and the risk of a fire well worth the risk. Jane savored the protein with rhapsodic joy. Time reduced to the present and immediate future, hanging on the hope of meeting her family if not today then tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow.

Jane had few things she called unequivocally hers. Technically it belonged to the previous hound master though he willed it to her on his death bed and since then it's been her treasure, her lucky charm. She scoured her pack, it was such a tiny thing, and blew into the metallic trinket after a triumphant "Ah-ha!" parted her lips. The whistle looked nothing special. Thin and slender as a quill and not nearly as beautiful, the whistle's functionality was a marvel for dog trainers. Twisting the lower half of the device changed the pitch and it varied from vibrations audible to the human ear to an ear-splitting headache for animal kin. Jane deigned not to use that frequency in her training, not even as a one time cautionary tale. Causing another person or creature pain was not in her heart. Twittering birds and curious squirrels responded to her calls but no familiar howls. Jane sighed.

Tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow.

Jane walked on, heading further north. By the end of the day a landscape of mountains loomed in the distance, murky and opaque from all the surrounding fog and clouds. She turned in for another night of lonely sleep. A hollow ache echoing her heartbeat haunted Jane until sleep claimed her.

In the distance, a canine muzzle shuffled along the forested floor, inhaling ponderously the familiar scent. Flowery with a hint of vanilla but her true scent was as soothing as memory recalled.

Her bladder woke Jane up earlier than usual and post morning duties, Jane munched on a day-old mint sprig to purge the taste of morning breath. Packed and ready to depart, Jane blew on the whistle again, followed by names of her dogs. She waited, ears alert.

Silence.

And then a howl, baritone and sonorous flooded through the trees, answered her call. Jane went very, very still.  
_It was not him. It could not be him. Not him, not him, not him._ It was a futile prayer. Shakily, Jane backpedaled, wild feverish eyes darting, hoping against hope not to see his silhouette emerge from the trees. Another howl and she bolted. While Jane came up short in burliness, she was nimble and quick enough to dodge roots and branches that sought to slow her down. However, the fact remained—she could not outrun any animal for long lengths of time. Then again, who said she had to?

Reaching into her pack Jane withdrew one of the last bottles of shampoo, pouring water from her flask into the half-used bottle and shook it vigorously. She tossed the diluted contents over the closest tree, even up into the branches and then threw the bottle in the opposite direction she ran. It would buy her time. Just enough time to reach a river or one of the big lakes and so long as she reached the water—

Lightning fast, a hand snaked out to seize her jerking Jane off her feet in the process. With the aid of her momentum Jane crashed into a chest, knocking the wind out of her. Her shriek died in her throat, a garbled swallow, at the feral snarl warping back his features. She trembled in his grasp, fighting for space and air. His fingers gripped harder, causing her to wince at what would be bruises.

"I am not a low brow cur so easily fooled by myopic trickery." The bass tones of his voice were almost at odds with his slender frame. He was tall yet skinny, an all-consuming presence yet paleness disguised by shadows—an entity of opposites. Jane processed little of this outside her hammering heart threatening to gallop out of her ribcage at racetrack speed. Her legs kicked uselessly in the air, a part of her mind not computing the futility of the act as it focused too much on the thought of escape.

"What are you—? Why, why are you here?" she panted. His grip did not relent. Though he frowned at her, his eyes held amusement. "How quick we forget," he chided, the condescending tone one uses with an errant child.  
Some of her fire came bak to life at his mocking timbre. "Let go."

He raised a sophisticated eyebrow. "Surely you know basic manners, my bird." Jane's face frosted into a glare.

"Let. Go. You churlish, hungry puppy." What a delightful spark this human had. Loki was most certainly amused now. "Look," she reasoned. "You have no need of me. I serve no purpose. You had you bloody revenge. You probably despise my kind and should want nothing to do with us any more. Let me go." When his tenure did not loosen, her words lost their calm effect and escalated into incensed. "I showed you a kindness! That should mean something!"

Loki clicked his tongue in a tsk, setting her down yet retaining one hand looped around her arm to keep her in place. "Yes, you did shower me with favors. Such a pretty voice." His last sentence was muted as if speaking more to himself than her. His free hand brushed reverently across her throat and Jane swallowed. Loki's grin was wide and hinted at teeth, teeth too sharp for a human, and bells rung in warning. This was no man standing before her. Jane wondered. A kindness that doesn't reach the recipient's heart—is that really a kindness? Or is it a selfish desire to do good, an arrogant assumption that your own intentions can warm others regardless of their thoughts and intentions? Maybe some people don't want kindness or symphony; maybe they only desire never endear.

"You were closer to the truth than you knew yet so fervently denied. Might," he told her, "is the only right."

Jane's legs trembled and in a flash of wicked ocular delight, Loki let go and she stumbled to the forest floor, her limbs quaking too much to support her. He loomed over her, predatorily tall as she now crab walked a few paces away. Jane latched onto her anger as a last defense against the dread knotting her organs.

"Stop it. I will not be another's property. You should know what that's like. The humiliation. You of all beings should understand the value of freedom and the pains of having it taken from you." His face tilted in a neutral, thoughtful quality.  
"My bird, what makes you think they had any power over me to begin with? It was a good show I admit and it gave me the added benefit of crossing paths with you but had I not wished it, you and your petty mortals would never be able to cage me so."

"Liar." Loki glared at her insolent tongue after he hid his shock.

"You wanted to be gone the instant they found you in the hills. But you were weak. And in that moment of weakness they overpowered you and you suffered until you were strong enough to break free." Stony silence and a gelid face bore down upon her.

"Clever little bird," he muttered. "Perhaps," he offered and Jane perked up, hopeful, "I'll just have to keep you, after all." His feral smile crushed that hope. One of his hands extended to grab her and Jane's heart hardened just enough. Before he could close the distance, Jane locked the whistle in place, blowing long and hard, past the point where her own lungs concaved and burned from lack of oxygen.

The shapeshifter writhed on the ground, his face contorted in agony as he held his ears. That high, whining frequency gave him double vision, melting every image into a kaleidoscope of colors. He retched and once his stomach emptied its contents he dry-heaved. Mucus and bile slathered his his esophagus and up his tongue imparting each take of breath a bilious taste. The sensation was oil to his wrath.

That girl. Instead of song her screams would lure him to sleep. Skills grow rusty without practice and torturing those in the city had been too short an affair. Drawn out torment was a different type of art.

Loki's gait was discombobulated, as the aftereffects of the whistle had upset his equilibrium. Trees suddenly swam into focus, Loki alternatively knocking into them or using them for support. Jane flickered at the edges of his vision. A wisp of brown hair. The jingling of her pack. Her heavy breathing and that divine scent of terror. So focused on her and her capture that Loki was caught unaware when multiple canines rammed into him, sinking in fangs or claws to draw blood. He bared his own teeth in reply, managing to catch one by the scruff of its neck and throw it off his shoulder. The others were quicker. His target was in the distance guarded by a circumference of growling, prickly furred dogs. A selection of point guards baited and snapped at him, trying to draw him away or the very least distract him while the human escaped. Loki's throat worked into a vicious bark of his own, and they were smart not to attack unless as a group. For dogs, they were clever, almost unnaturally so, but Loki paid it little mind, the thought more irritating than intriguing then.

She was getting away.

In a series of acrobatic moves Loki vaulted over the dogs, legs eating up the distance faster than the human could create it. His magic materialized into a whip and with a savage rotation of his shoulder caught Jane's ankle. Another pull of his rotator cuff threw her up, shrieking and crawling for purchase or leverage, and then sprawled in front on him. Loki's foot on her sternum pinned her while the whip changed into a sword at her throat stilled her movements. From his peripherals he caught sight of the alpha—the dog's hate palpable—and smirked.

"Call off your dogs if you want her to live." The tip of the sword carved a scant line of red down her throat for emphasis. Kazi snarled at the man. Time stopped as the two alphas stared each other down, Kazi holding Loki's gaze and the shapeshifter's goblin grin grew. The audacity of these hounds matched those of their master. And what loyalty. Loki dug his weapon a little deeper, earning a cry from Jane and at that, the alpha relented. The dogs withdrew their attack, though they ringed him in a defensive semicircle, and the rest behind their leader. Every pair of eyes blazed with bloodlust and contempt for him compared to the love for the mortal squirming beneath him.

Loki perused the pack members. None looked for want of food or shelter, the same which could not be said for other refugees of that city. These were fighters. These were survivors. He liked that in a creature. Loki held back a grin. Changing his vocal chords into the All-Tongue of his beast form, he spoke.

"I've dominated your alpha. Submit."

None of the hounds assumed a submissive pose. More than a few defiantly haughtily sniffed at him and one had the gall to laugh hyena-like. A short-haired collie mix stepped forth. The alpha. "You keep our Heart of the Pack. Return her." These dogs—were they really? Loki had his theories—played by a different set of rules. He was game.

"Name?" he inquired. When no one replied dug his boot further into his captive's chest, sending her into a coughing fit. Some tensed, snarling, but did not move. One lunged at him but the alpha brooked no insubordination and put the old dog in his place. The elder canine curled his lip at the leader albeit complied.

"Alpha," answered the hound. He was not the heaviest, nor the wisest or the swiftest, Loki could tell, but alpha's seldom were.

"A trade then, Alpha. One Heart of the Pack for another." The dog sneered at him. "Tis a fair trade. This mortal lives—in my care, under my rule, by my authority in whatever fashion I desire—if you swear fealty to me." Kazi analyzed the opponent before him but waited not a beat to answer with cultured resonance. He sounded almost wolfish, almost wise.

"There is only one Heart of the Pack. Only one." Therefore, there would be no other loyalty given. Loki disguised his face in counterfeit concern.

"You'd kill her out of misplaced loyalty?"

"Kill her," the collie mix's words swung with the danger of an oath, "and we will find adequate indemnification for your trespasses."

So they knew their limits then. They had no hope to kill him—wound perhaps, if not fatally—but this leader was keen. Loki made a show of mulling over the hound's argument. He just needed the dog to bend in the right direction.

Cantankerous old Finn's blood boiled at the sight of his master so. She had whelped him, raised him, sung him lullabies during thunderstorms as a puppy, loved him—an omega even as the years augmented yet his rank did not—and he reciprocated her affections as no other in the pack. Finn held no lost love for Kazi, his leader, though hierarchy dictated obedience.

That not-man thing, smirking, smiling, taunting, inflicted more pains on his caretaker. But she was strong. Heart of the Pack grit her teeth and silently bore his sadisms. Finn was on the brink of wanting her to cry out, beg for help from the pack. Kazi wouldn't ignore that. He did, however, ignore this, so focused on the not-man thing that the Heart of the Pack's sufferings he set aside. A whimper finally escaped her and Finn tolerated no more. He charged in big, lopping strides, snapping at the foot's tendons holding down his pack mate. Not-man thing gracefully pivoted away from his jaws but not far enough so she could flee. The sword magicked back into a whip, clutching one of her wrists and hauling her back.  
This not-man thing was an experienced fighter. Using his peripheral vision to snag Jane each time she attempted to flee then centered his body between the two to keep them apart. As with every fighter, he had his flaws. Arrogance. Being too showy with one of his moves, Finn used the time lapse to bite the whip loosening it's hold long enough for Jane to wiggle free.

_He did it!_

And for it, the not-man thing stuck a dagger betwixt two of his lower ribs.

Jane screamed and ran back for her dog, not computing that it made his sacrifice vain. Her hands tried to stem the flow but there was so much blood and it came out so fast, dyeing her fingers, palms, and forearms a solemn red. Tears made it difficult to see although what she did see made her insides clench.

Finn was dying.

"No, no, nononono. You stay with me Finn. Please stay with me. You have so many years in you. Please Finn. Please don't go just yet," Jane blubbered. The dog's eyes swam out of focus, breathing slowly for one on the edge of death.

_Heart of the Pack? _Finn sniffed and relaxed into her hold. Flowery with a hint of vanilla but more importantly mud and meadows and pack; she smelled just like he remembered as a puppy. He whined against her, which produced another heaving round of sobs. He tried to move and dog paddled no where. Jane picked up his head and cradled it like old times. His limbs felt heavy.

Loki cleaned his dagger disinterestedly while the pack was mournfully silent. His eyes took in the human's reaction—how sentimental—and internally derided Jane for her emotions. She made his death worthless by coming back; although it was worthless to begin with as he would have caught her anyway, this just made it quicker for him. Loki's ear tweaked in the direction of dark clouds that gathered near the mountains. He better go before company he did not wish to see at the moment found him.

Thunder rumbled in the distance and Finn sunk his head into the crook of Jane's arm. Still didn't like storms. Jane smiled in spite of herself, continuing to pet and soothe him. It was the least she could do. Humming to give herself a beat and time to clear her throat—not an easy feat as she was like to burst into wails and mucus-racked choking fits—Jane found the lyrics she wanted, though changed to suit her purposes here.

Shapeshifter Loki stilled. She was singing; it was a lullaby about thunderstorms and the comfort of another person offered during the night. A flash of an older woman, matronly, with wrinkles that formed with her smile and tender kisses she liked to place upon his brow swept through him and Loki felt vulnerable, exposed as if they could see his heart. Yet he lingered, eager to listen.

After a handful of stanzas, Jane drew the song to a close.

_"But it's dark and it's late_  
_So I'll hold you and wait_  
_'Till your frightened eyes do close_  
_And I hope that you know_  
_How I love you so…_  
_Everything will be fine in the morning_  
_The rain will be gone in the morning_  
_But I'll still be here, in the morning."_

Finn was limp and inanimate; nevertheless, Jane's fingers brushed his fur from head to tail in loving, careful strokes. Loki took a step.

"Don't touch me, you fucking monster."

Whomever favored the belief that hate is inherently hot in nature never crossed this woman for her words cut as the tundra in wintertide. Loki belittled her with a smirk.

"The passerine thinks it a gyrfalcon? How droll. But twas not I who forsook his immolation. Rather cruel of you."  
Jane hunched protectively over the deceased, baring her dull human teeth at him in poor imitation of ferocity. "Do not touch me," she repeated. Loki sheathed his dagger, sighing. He just got back his bearings—his reason for hunting this girl in the first place and no, it was not for torture; that ephemeral want has passed—yet she constantly tried his patience. His tongue clicked rudely to the roof of his mouth.

"Come now. Let's not do this dance yet again." Not when the thunder resounded closer than before. "I offer you a better life, better than one sleeping on the forest floor, and still you slap at my generously extended hand. I find it quite irritating."

"You offer me a cage," she spat.

"Technically a castle," he quipped.

"A pretty cage then with corsets. I'll take the forest floor."

Loki released a chuckle. "Lucky for you such has been out of fashion in my lands for generations. Good riddance, too. They were an annoyance to unlace."

"Loki…" Growling his name came from a a foggy memory of smoke and fire and fear and Jane wasn't aware she even said it until it passed her lips. Intense cyan eyes swung round to center on her being. That was the first time she said his name. It rattled over her tongue like clumsily wielded magic, harming its wielder more than the opponent. Some of her solid ire faltered under his look. That look stunned her immobile for a breath as Loki went to close the gap. Her fight-or-flight instincts exploded to life and Jane darted for the rest of her family but made it not, he too agile and she too slow.

Loki had a less challenging time holding a sackful of irascible serpents than this one female. She squirmed, she kicked, she screamed—she even went to chomp off his nose when he turned her to face him! Talk about spitfire personality. Honestly, he hasn't been this entertained in ages. Alas, he didn't have the time. Not now. His right hand glowed to life and though Jane flinched away from it, he place his thumb and forefinger to her brow and temple. She shuddered and then sagged boneless against his, out cold. The pack was in disarray, barking, whining, howling, and kept from attacking through brutish submission by the alpha and his stalwart betas and lackeys. Loki caught the alpha's eye.

"Find the Asgard Mountains and we'll talk." Summoning up the last of his core reserves of magic, Loki shrouded himself and Jane in opaque, iridescent light to teleport them with a cracking snap aftereffect. Loki breathed deep of the thin mountain air made sweet by mineral rich water and the Queen's gardens. He brushed a lock of hair from the woman's face, tucking it behind her ear.

"Welcome to Asgard, pipit."

* * *

Soaking in scalding hot water was a balm after all those months in that mangy backwater. His bath was scented with spices and soap, transforming the water a murky, milk color. Loki relaxed as the servant washed his hair, combing back his locks with practiced hands. Another scrubbed his limbs free of dirt and grime and a third stood off to the side, alert to his wants for drink. Unbidden, the attendant refilled his glass when it dipped below an unseen line.

A timid knock asked for entry and he allowed it. Head bent at a subservient angle, the man relayed the Queen's message. Loki grunted his compliance, sipping his drink and relishing the burn before he provided a verbal answer. The servant bobbed again and backed out. The Queen was such a worrywart when it came to her second son. Behind his glass, Loki's smile gentled with genuine warmth. He had missed her most of all. Dinner with his mother would be a welcomed affair. Cleaned and perfumed, Loki donned a silk robe and entered his room, frowning at the empty bed.

"Where is she?"

"M'lord?"

His frown threatened to become a scowl and Loki waved his hand to the bed for emphasis, as if the valet should know of whom he spoke. "She. The girl. She was to be properly bathed and brought back. Who has failed in such a simple task?"  
The man blanched. An ireful second prince was a regrettable occurrence and not one people lived through should ireful escalade into flat anger. He gulped down his trepidations.

"M'lord, the maids brought her back—she was still unconscious then—and deposited her in the foyer, unsure where to place her. As you requested she was," but Loki cut him off, bidding him and the rest of the footmen away. They scampered out with experienced refinement of movement, shutting his doors with nary a sound.

Now it was only he and the mortal. Ignoring her form on the couch, Loki strode over to his armoire. Tired as he was from taxing his magical reserves Loki had the servants pamper him including drying his hair with a towel. It was still damp when he wove his fingers through it and the ends curled up but it would do. Shifting through his wardrobe, Loki found an acceptable pair of slacks and tightened the belt around his waist. Frigga would send the cook into a frenzy when she saw how thin he became—he had never been anything but lean before the event and even then she slipped him extra servings and treats. She would try to stuff him like a goose destined for foie gras. Loki rolled his eyes in an endearing way. She was nothing like her husband and only vaguely similar to her first-born son—his better, more redeeming traits, Thor got from their mother. Thoughts of his male relatives had Loki spare a glance at the mortal in the foyer. Loki detested sharing his things. He couldn't see her but he did smell her.

Anacephalic, gossiping trucklers, he cursed. They couldn't follow a single order to the letter, a very simple one at that. Give the girl a bath. She was unconscious, for King's sake! How difficult could it have been? Clearly he overestimated their intellect. Smoothing gel into his hair, Loki considered his appearance acceptable.

He crouched down to better view the mortal and hummed, neither impressed nor contemptuous of her form. Fetching by mortal standards when cleaned up but he has known ethereal beauties and no, she did not compare. And tiny. Itty-bitty. Lilliputian. Even a mortal man—enraged at the time—could pick her up single-handedly. Not of the warrior class, obviously, though she lacked not in spirit. She who defied him.

Jane.

He tasted the name along with the memory, and while agreeable on the tongue it kindled no fires of passion. No, she held his interest via other means, other more intriguing features. He saw facets of an idiosyncratic nature, curious intellect fueled by unquenchable thirst. A kindred soul if you will. Stealing her previous owner's books to learn. Aiding the forsaken beast—him—and looking at him with wanting wonder held spellbound by the mystery he exuded. Doing tasks considered unsuitable for her kind—truly, raising dogs of all creatures? So many quirks. Loki sniffed and snorted, giving his somnolent audience a squiggly pursing of the lips. She smelled clean, of lavender, but he detected a more visceral scent of outdoors and canid. Passing thought wandered by, marveling if her years living with hounds made her smell like them. Did her body absorb the redolence of her environment until they became her own yet not her own? Mortals were such curious lot; but those were thoughts for a later day. Besides, she and her own scent underneath the dogs and lavender and meadows. It was—Loki leaned in, his nose almost touching her hair—milk and honey. She smelled just like her voice sounded. How felicitous. But how she smelled thus was puzzling. Loki sniffed her again. No, she did not reek of literal milk and honey; rather, her scent invoked the association. Soothing and warm, it comforted like heated milk sweetened with a generous spoonful of honey on cold or lonely nights.

Loki shook his head. Ridiculous thoughts.

Sleep did little to mask her anxiety. More than one wrinkle drew across her brow and a short downwards pull on her lips foretold of the turbulence roiling below. Unhappy even in sleep, what a difficult wee oscine he's acquired. One he didn't plan on relinquishing, or sharing. That got his mind on track. Licking the pad of his thumb then snapping his fingers sparked the saliva with magic. Green dust puffed into being from the sparks, growing darker and larger by commanding fingers swirling it this way and that. When it reached proper potency, a color green of zero intensity that it looked black, Loki bade it forth. Though unconscious she shied from the magic's presence, another furrow notched her forehead. It crawled around the mortal's throat, not delicate in its touch and she murmured disturbed incoherencies due to the feel. The dust solidified, glowing hot like the volcanoes from the southern isles of Muspelheim but cool to touch, until what remained was a solid metal torc of his colors and imbued with his magic. Brushing his hand over the necklace sent a ripple of illuminating lights as the torc responded to his persona and corresponding magic.

Satisfied, Loki stood and finished dressing for his dinner with the Queen. He considered her awkwardly curled up form on the couch; she would wake up with knots and kinks all over. Loki exited his chambers and beckoned one of the footmen lining the halls. His words were terse and to the point. The footmen bowed and went to do as instructed. The magic would last a while yet so he planned to thoroughly enjoy his mother's company.

Jane felt sick. Nauseously, achingly, half-dead sick. Her head felt like someone tried crushing it in one of those Dark Age devices, turning a lever to continuously apply pressure until she popped like a pimple. Nasty imagery all around, which Jane immediately regretted as her stomach heaved. Thankfully nothing was in it or this very nice rug wouldn't smell so nice anymore. Since when do forests have nice rugs? It all came back to her.

Fuck.

Rushing to her feet proved not a good idea. Black dots spotted her vision from all the blood flowing from her head and her legs buckled, as one of them was half-asleep. Neurons fired worse than a trigger-happy lunatic in pheasant hunting season while her blood churned sludge-like in her veins. However much she wanted to move or could think about moving, doing, her body failed to respond. Hyperventilation was a few breaths away. Jane inhaled deeply, held it a tick, released it and repeated until her heart rate felt relatively calm. She needed calm. Clarity. Reason. Wit.

Opening her eyes again, for she closed them to regulate her breathing, Jane saw where she was. Conversely, she saw where she wasn't: She was not in the forest; she was not, judging by the thin air, near sea level. Mountains? The room—rooms her peripherals corrected— was decked floor to ceiling in finery, fine things, very delicate, breakable things. A vicious, vengeful part of her desired to pitch a tantrum of epic proportions. Crush all his possessions to teeny tiny pieces. Jane smash! But that would waste precious time because… Her limbs flexed to life, the pains and sickness receding and she felt vaguely normal. Jane snuck glances in the rooms to confirm her thoughts.

No one else was here. She was alone. Loki—Jane grit her teeth over that name; she hated that name, that man—was gone, not here. But he would return, wouldn't he? Nervousness flooded her core and Jane swatted at it. She did not trade one collar for another. Involuntarily her hand rubbed her neck and Jane jumped. As if scalded, she retracted her fingertips and then hesitantly reached back to verify her fears. She scavenged for a reflective surface and her jaw slackened at the monstrous picture looking back at her.

He-he put an actual collar on her! _That rat bastard! That bloody, damnable cur! I'll castrate him, douse him in oil and flambé the rest of whatever else I don't shear!_ Thinking of ways to torture and desecrate Loki's corpse was a pleasant diversion for a few minutes. It expanded into many more when no visible clasp or amount of tugging, pulling, or scratching removed it.

Magic. Jane swore all the more.

She did all the right things. Jane kept her head down, didn't cause problems for her former master and not that much trouble for the deceased hound master, gave strangers courtesies and acts of kindness—she lived her life the right way. If you could believe it, she acted according to a set of ethics, which was a paradoxic, satirical farce in this world that did not share her sentiments on morals, clearly. In return, life gave her this. Again. No more head ducking. No more kindness, certainly not for Loki, not ever. Once she got out of here, if she ever came across him dangling from a cliff to certain death, she'd turn tail and leave him to his fate. She might even light a fire under the rope to help it along.

From the torc Jane realized she was wearing nicer clothes, too, and she—another sniff to properly identify the flower—smelled like lavender. The garments flowed diaphanously around her person, silk and soft-spun wool of grey-blue like the sea before a storm. Jane lifted the edges and looked beneath. Yep. She was wearing a dress. She had never worn a dress in all her years—why would she? Dresses don't work well when running after mud-splattered hounds. Biting her lip Jane weighed her options. Deal with the dress, escape now. Or, look for pants and escape after. A dress won't work well in a forest. Most likely no one will walk in on her while she's changing. Most likely.

Jane did not like those odds, but she really needed pants and more importantly pockets. Quick as a rabbit Jane ducked into the main room, shuffled though the dresser's contents and scowled at what she found: Nothing in her size, that was for sure. Whomever lived in these chambers was gigantic. Gigantic and lean. And male, a person who loved green and—the dots formed an outline and Jane drew connecting, conclusive lines.

She was in Loki's room.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuckitty fuck fuck.

Jane threw back the clothes and ran out of his sleeping chambers. Why was she in his room? Why wasn't she in the servants' quarters or the stables, or with other staff members? Why Loki's personal room? Jane buried her head in her hands. She woke up to a nightmare, a horrible, horrible nightmare.

All that previous energy evaporated, Jane falling back onto the same couch she woke up on. Swallowing had the acidic after taste of bile but Jane didn't care about the rug anymore. Certainly not his rug. Morosely, Jane looked over the room again. Huge tapestry, check. Heavy, ornate wooden furniture, check. Crackling, villainous fire, check. Her clothing from before washed and folded, che—What? Jane lunged for them, all but crying over the comforting aroma of her dogs beneath all that soap. She shucked her dress and donned her old clothes with a smile. Her suspenders and bag, too. A couple of tears leaked out and she messily wiped at them. They worked like a shot of espresso. She could do this. Totally do this. Jane made for the door, hand on the knob but it rattled and opened without her doing so.

"Ah, you're awake. Very good. I brought you some things and, oh dear. Did the dress not fit properly? Usually the tailors are much better about measuring." The valet chattered as he entered the room with pillows and blankets, an amicable smile on his face. Jane returned his look with a suspicious, angry cat glare of her own.

"Where am I?" she cut through his prattling and he gave her rude actions no visible reaction.

"My apologies. You were quite out of it when you arrived. Welcome to Asgard."

"Asgard?"

"Yes," he moved to set down the blankets, working while talking. "The Asgard Mountains. Quite a profitable kingdom along the Western border. The tundra of Jotunheim is much farther north, though we have our skirmishes, and the city states of Midgard are to the south and east of us. You came from the far east, correct?"

Asgard? She was in Asgard? She's never heard of Asgard!

"How far east?" Her tone was not friendly, certainly not like the valet's and a cursory wariness passed over the latter's face.

"The prince did not say. He was weary though and that begets much distance traveled, especially under transportive magic. It can be rather strenuous."

Jane nodded, not really understanding. "So, it's far away, that makes sense why I haven't heard… Prince? What prince?"

The valet gave her a look. "Prince Loki, of course, second prince of Asgard."

"Loki?" Her voice leapt into a shriek. Jane clamped a hand around her mouth least she scream again.

"Miss," the valet's mouth edged down in concern. "Are you alright? Shall I you a glass of water?" Jane didn't hear him, barely registering him going over to a pitcher and pouring a glass. Loki—Kaunaz, the beast, that horrible, terrible man—was a prince. A being of power, literally and politically. People in power all over again. She had promised herself otherwise.

Jane looked hopefully at the man's back. "I'm not here of my own will. Loki kidnapped me, took me away from my own family. Please, how do I get out and back east?" The valet paused in his ministrations. He did not turn around to face her.  
"The castle is lovely this time of year. Queen Frigga has a fondness for greenery and while her prized jewel is the Royal Gardens, the castle has many trees and flowers and courtyards of verdure splendor. Winter had its own charms, too, but the cold makes it difficult to stay outdoors long." He was not talking to her. Rather he was reciting a speech, she discerned to her growing panic. "Prince Loki has a temper but he provides gratitude and benefits to those competent at their jobs. You'll see." She did not want to see. "Life here is congenial compared to other civilizations. Many win their freedoms and choose to stay."

The valet returned, offering her that glass of water and a smile. Jane's left arm muscles contracted. "I'm sorry," she told him before tackling him, hand on his mouth to muffle his squawk of surprise. He grabbed at her, fisting her hair, and she was no match strength for strength, so Jane made do with grappling. Flipping onto his back, she wrapped her arm around his carotid and squeezed. Her dogs were stronger and wrestling with them taught her how to subdue tougher opponents in little time. The man chameleoned purple soon enough and Jane immediately released him once he lost consciousness. She repeated her apology as she dashed for the door, snatching up her bag as she went.

An empty hallway. Good start.

Unfortunately she had no notion as to which way was out. Trial and error were not appealing but no other options were viable. May be it was a small castle. Asking for directions could very well land her back in her cell, Loki's room; she wouldn't chance it. Peering out a random window Jane gasped and promptly glued herself to the opposite wall. Holy hellfire they are high up. Impossibly high up. How-could-she-still-breath high up. Aside from leap frogging on a docile mountain goat, she wasn't sure how to get down. Details. One bridge at a time. Other hallways had people, sometimes lots of people, but keeping her head down and gait purposeful saw that no one bothered her. In fact, most didn't spare her a second glance. Jane internally cheered.

Along her throat the collar tingled. She ran a few fingers over it, puzzled by the heat it offered. Warmer than usual. Odd. Jane walked on, growing a little frustrated when she passed the same arcade for the fifth time. Some guards entered but Jane paid them little mind. If they bothered her she already had an acceptable lie—while a terrible liar, at least the lie sounded true and it worked before—but it was nonetheless unsettling to see one point at her and say something to his group. He shouted his intentions across the corridor.

"Halt! Prince Loki demands your presence." No need to tell her twice. Jane pivoted and bolted quick as a sprite down the other end. The guards called after her, their armor clanking in time with their steps as they jostled after her. Fear made her fly, jumping over obstacles and weaving through the masses and dodging their outstretched hands, too swift for them to catch. Until one of them did.

"Truly, you test my patience songbird; although I am grateful you remained lost long enough for me to enjoy my meal." Blood to ice, Jane grew ashen and sick at the sight of his cyan eyes gone smoky grey and the light smirk playing upon his features. "Alas, I can't chase you all day and you reject the largesse and liberties I magnanimously bestow you. So be it." Onlookers openly stared, many curious as to who this person their prince brought back with him and for what reason. Neither Jane or Loki gave their audience much thought. Jane flinched violently back, held only in place by Loki's hold on the torc as she made to flee. It wouldn't do to have his songbird fly away. His other hand sketched a series of runes in the air and half a breath later Jane was back in her cell, Loki's room, not to mention very dizzy. The words were out before she processed them.

"Take it off." It was not a request.

Loki quirked a brow. "I admit you're quite lovely but that's not why I brought you here." Jane processed his insinuation and scrambled back far as his hold would allow, arms hugging her chest protectively. Loki laughed at her distress. His hands went to work, weaving another runic spell in place and when Jane squirmed too much, Loki threw her on the bed and held her in place by grabbing her ankles. He finished the spell verbally and the runes circled around her ankle, teasing the skin and giving her unpleasant shivers. Loki stood back admiring his work.

A shackle of quality metal, silver and etched with gold runes, looped around her right ankle with a short collection of chain links that jingled as they dragged across the floor. They connected to nothing, almost as if mere decoration, a mummer's farce of freedom. Jane glared at him, trembling with poorly restrained fury.

"Take off these, these abominations, you—"

Loki grinned boyishly. "Say please."

"Take them off or I'll skin you in your sleep!"

His grin became lecherous, not at all perturbed at her violent declaration. "You'd willingly come to bed with me? Why, Jane, how bold of you." She burned a delightful, endearing shade of red. Such fun.

"You villainous leviathan! You damnable cur! You kidnap people to serve you—I know I'm not the first, probably not the last—and then the same happens to you, having your freedom stolen, and you mudsling my people as barbaric? The only cruelty they ever committed was letting you live to haunt me." No longer grinning, Loki tugged at the torc, pulling Jane closer and forcing her to tilt her head back to make eye contact. Anger and fear swirled in her eyes—more hazel than brown. Loki's grip tightened just so around the collar, and he felt her pulse jump.

"I saved you from a life of destitution. You were homeless and living in a forest. If I did not find you, another less benevolent being would have come across you. Your already brief life would have been shortened considerably. Yet I receive no thanks for my efforts. A life where you want for nothing in a castle you toss aside. I thought you were smarter than that, Jane." Her name echoed like he owned it and for him, he did. Jane straightened her back.

"He who dies with the most toys is still dead. What good to things do for me when I don't want them? I want my freedom. I want my family. Let me go."

Loki's patience wore precariously thin and Jane saw a flood of disgruntlement wash over his visage until he smoothed it out. When he opened his eyes again, they were cold. "I'm not sure you comprehend your situation. I own you. My will is law and absolute and your wants are subject to my whim. Until I say otherwise. If you would but listen, you'd see how pleasing me can be of great value. For instance," he released her and walked over to his bed, magicking himself into nothing but a silk pair of pants. Jane eeped and averted her gaze, some of the blood coming back to her cheeks. Loki leaned back on the bed and smirked into his hand. "Sing me to sleep and I'll remove one of the two."

Jane threw a nasty grimace his way and turned to leave. She tripped three steps later, just shy of reaching the door. Loki held up a chain, the links connecting all the way back to her ankle. How? Those were not there a second ago. They vanished. She picked herself up and tried again. Jane made it past the door but halfway into the foyer, the chain grew taut and she yelped as she was dragged back into Loki's room. The chain was back and Loki fiddling with the links. Fake innocuous looks and all, Loki pretended not to notice her. Jane ran for the doors and skidded her knees when the same chain pulled her back. Loki had not moved from his bed though he looked more pleased than the cat who ate the canary. Once more, the chain vanished.

"I'm waiting." Jane scowled, crossed her arms and, turning her back on him, set forth to ignore him the rest of the evening. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid…she chanted to herself until her anger burned out, going from boil to simmer, and she chanced a peek over her shoulder. He wasn't watching her, reading out of a large, leather book. She bolted, this time making it one step and face-planting for her efforts. Loki's shoulder's shook with repressed mirth. "My offer won't last forever, songbird." Jane huffed.

"I'm going to bed," she said.

"You're blankets and pillows are in the corner. Ah-ah-ah," he tasked when she made to drag them out of his room and tugging lightly on the now present chain. "Yousleep here."

"I most certainly will not!"

Loki sighed. "We've had this conversation about your will and my will. How do you think this will end?" He got a pillow to his face. Bewildered, he just stared for a moment. She just threw a pillow at him. Loki stood and Jane squeaked, remembering just how scary and powerful he was. She dove under the bed when he made to grab her. She huddled there, head in hands and watched as his feet toured around the bed. Above where she couldn't see, Loki smiled. This mortal was more entertaining than he thought. Throwing pillows at him? It has been too long since he engaged in light-hearted fun and trickery.

"Hiding under the bed? Didn't anyone tell you that's where monsters hide?" His voice was all mirth and mischief. He toyed with the still visible chain, hearing her suck in a breath as the metallic chain clinked along the floor, but he didn't tauten it. Rather he toyed with her, alternating between taut and slack until he felt her guard drop and yanked hard. Jane screamed as she was dragged out and tried to get back under. Loki pinned her, ear-to-ear grin at her fear. Smelled as good as he remembered, heart pounding. For such a frightened thing she didn't often act like it.

Jane did not see a way out of this. She spoke before he could do anything. "You swear you'll remove one if I sing?" Loki's hand stilled and he leaned back a smidgen. He showed her his unnaturally sharp teeth and Jane gulped.  
Sweetest tongue hides sharpest tooth. They must have been talking about him.

Loki got up and returned to bed, though his eyes followed her. Jane suddenly felt cold and jittery. She was not a performer. She didn't sing for people on command; she sung to soothe puppies and to beckon her dogs to sleep when they were sick. Her voice was nothing special; there were much better singers out there and the songs she knew were mostly children rhymes and lullabies. Loki frowned when she remained silent and Jane felt the air grow colder. She shivered and crawled over to the pillows and blankets. Her "bed". In his room. She did not like those connotations.

"Can I have some water?" It pained her how meek she sounded but Jane was tired and sore and jumpy. She wanted to be nowhere near Loki but, for now, she had to make do. She needed to adapt. When he lowered his guard, she'd be gone faster than a blink. But now she had to sing. Loki motioned to a pitcher and Jane poured herself a glass, downed it and then poured another that she sipped. Loki's patience was wearing thin again; she could tell. She stumbled over the first few words and stopped, feeling Loki's glare. She shut her eyes to tune him out and buried herself in better memories. Memories of her mother, hazy as they were. The words flowed from there.

"Sunshine, you are my sunshine…" Jane's voice was soft, but the room was quiet so it carried well enough. The room got a little warmer the more she sang. Just before she nodded off, she felt a blanket drape over her. The image of her mother came and went, drawing a tear from one eye. "Momma?" she slurred, sleepy. Fingers brushed at the tear track and that was the last she recalled before darkness.

.

.

.


	3. Chapter 3

**General editing done. Nothing major. **

**Hawkz**

* * *

_A Kindness: Chapter 3_**  
**

Jane came out of her slumber with a start, panic sending her heart galloping into her throat and body strung taut as a rubber band shy of snapping. She was on the floor. A hard ashlar floor. The blankets kept her cuddle-worth wool on the bottom and diaphanous silk sheets on top. Jane kicked them away and scowled, blaming them for her current predicament. Early morning hush muffled the room—Jane breathing less chaotically seeing she was alone—and muted white sunlight trickled through the curtains. Aesthetically, the time of day and architectural layout of the room encouraged beauty in the eye of the beholder. Jane saw nothing beyond a cage of grotesquerie.

She exhaled a measured breath, stretching out her body's kinks. It was too early to be this angry and it exhausted her. Habit dictated she move and while it was early, she usually rose in time with the sun for her chores without prompting. The previous day's events must have taken their toll more seriously than she thought.

_Finn._

Jane rubbed her tears away. She hadn't been able to bury him. Left for carrion and bears. He deserved better and Loki deserved an eternity in the underworld, preferably with a personal demon sticking daggers between his ribs. Raking her finger through her hair calmed her, her actions as much habit as an innate necessity for clarity. Most other servants and slaves back at the house smiled and snickered over Jane's mannerisms. _Just like her dogs_, they'd chuckle. Petting her dogs calmed them and combing her hair calmed her. Family familiarities indeed.

Speaking of hair brushing, where was her comb? Where were her things? Gone. Her bag was not anywhere in the room. Jane opened the door and went to search the foyer. The potential loss of her whistle made her heart ache anew. Hopefully Loki had not destroyed it and it remained safe insider her bag, wherever that was. Lady Luck smiling down on her, maybe it was in the next room over.

"Up already? I thought you'd sleep the day away to recoup lost strength." His voice dipped into condescension on the word strength, as if laughing internally at the thought of mortals possessing strength. How weak those creatures were compared to him! Jane jumped, his speech eliciting a short yelp. He sat next to an ornate, thick tabletop eating a feast of fruit, bread, and honey washed down with what smelled like tea. Steam wafted from a kettle and a lazy hint of mint tickled her nose. It would be a feast for her whose previous paucity of a meal barely gave her the energy for the day. Food like this he probably considered meager fare.

_Prince Loki._

A nauseating thought that the beast she helped, now a man—not a man? Not a person? What _is_ he?—was another amoral lord and in response to her unsettling thoughts, Jane settled for glaring at the…creature before her.

Loki slathered a slice of bread liberally with honey. "Come now, I haven't even done anything yet. Can't we save the funny faces post-breakfast?" Jane gave him no reply, sweeping the room for the iconic leather satchel. That ratty old thing being surrounded by all this opulence and quality would stick out like a bloodied butcher among vegetarian aristocracy.

Second day into her captivity afforded Jane time to analyze and realize the lifestyle her captor embraced. He was not dressed for the day, an unfastened cashmere robe and light linen slacks fluttering at the barest breeze from the open oriels. Unlike other mountain tops this one—_Asgard, was it?_—had an autumnal climate, cool sunshine and temperate, chilled by a persistent winter nipping at unguarded moments; the zing of a zephyr, the need for a fire, verglas along the window periphery, and so on. The shutters and curtains pulled back to give a lordly view of the mountains, part of the castle, the homes carved into the mountainside and a winding road cutting through the town. Further down that road was the torturous sight of freedom on the horizon that the road disappeared into, knowingly out of reach. Even at this altitude evergreens, chaparral, towering redwoods, and bright maples thrived, and semi-pliant branches soughed in an abrupt northern wind. Jane heard the susurrus and felt it echo up through the mountain and cascade back down into the valley below. That one view during her attempted escape did not do this castle justice. Majestic illustrated this view precisely, and Jane's look of authentic awe pleased Loki.

Following the streaks of sunlight skipping over ancient ashlar, Jane's eyes tracked the runic engravings over the masonry and furnishings. In the sun or not they hummed and thrummed—enchanted—under her curious stare. Stone, wood, and marble fashioned by non-mortal hands held themselves in resplendence and sublimity, a silent splendor their shape-shifting owner could never intimidate. The artistic flare of the room was subtle yet tangible as in the way hair prickles in a change of temperature. Unseen yet perceivable and once felt, the person sought its cause. Jane let the grandeur ripple over her senses, the beauty, the tranquility, acknowledging the makers' skills until its message of power—implied right to rulership—poisoned the unspoken beauty. Unless granted her freedom, this room would be nothing save a prison.

Jane stiffened, mindful of the stare she sensed boring into her backside. The view distracted her initially but once the fact that she was not alone reared its head tranquility deserted her. Irascibility took up residence in its place putting a vinegary taste on the roof of her mouth. She needed to focus on the important things, not pretty views and architectural designs.

"Where's my bag?"

"No good morning?"

"It would be a good morning without you in it," she snapped, finally letting her eyes focus on his form. He tsked her, a non-verbal chide for her poor manners. Loki took a dramatic bite of his honeyed bread, not hiding his grin when he caught her stomach's rumble. He showcased his amusement with rident glee and it grew seeing her flush.

_How did he even hear that across the room?_ Because the man sitting at the table is not a man. Wolf in human skin. Flashes of memory and what he could do, did do, had Jane taking an unconscious step back. Lowering her guard would be a dangerous, foolish notion. As it was, Loki's attention was not on her any longer but his breakfast and the pamphlet of papers in his lap. Jane stayed on the other side of the room and Loki was content to ignore her after that last grin of his. She was more than happy to do the same. One of her hands raked her hair again and Jane frowned at the knots tangling her fingers.

She wanted her things, dammit.

Jane swallowed her ire for a tone almost civil. "Where are my things, Loki?" For reasons beyond her, that question got his attention sooner than she thought it would. His face stretched up in disbelief and a surfeit of horrid reactions Jane wished not to decipher. That and an analytical gleam played upon his features. Then silence. What used to be tranquil for her now became nerve-racking in his company. She expected some snarky rejoinder yet he said nothing. His tongue wet his lips and his jaw shifted to words unsaid as a knock on the door schooled his face back into a snobbish shield. The entering steward and domestics gave Loki a deferential bow and ignored Jane's presence apart from furtive, agog glances under the guise of work. The maids entered Loki's room to sort through his wardrobe, picking up dirty garments and laying out a clean outfit for the prince. A third maid, a mousy little female hunched over with severe age, hobbled to Jane and held out a set of clean clothes. Jane set her mouth into a firm, polite line.

"No thank you, ma'am."

Loki scoffed from the table, flipping the pages of whatever document the valet handed to him and scrawled his signature. He sent the woman an exasperated stare. "You are not wearing those same clothes day after day. You'll smell."

Jane's replying smile was large and snarly. "Then kindly point me to the door and I'll not offend your olfactory senses."

The other servants—_are they slaves too?_—shuffled nervously, keeping their eyes downcast yet chanced peeking up to see this event unfold. Rumor circulated this newcomer the prince brought home and locked away in his room. It had been some time since the prince's last consort and this human—human!—compared poorly to his previous lovers. The second prince was known for his whims and fickle nature outside his penchant for mischief. She would not be here long, especially with that attitude. How her head was still attached to her neck was a marvel. Although the larger marvel was the jewelry decorating the girl's neck and ankle. Slaves come and go, lovers come and go, yet never before had the prince clearly marked his conquests. Loki did not treat her as a lover—those who waited upon the prince snorted at such ludicrous rumors; whatever the girl was, it was not a lover—but so far she did not work as a domestic slave. So, what was she?  
Loki bore a dissatisfied, disinterested frown. He yawned. "Don't wanna." The servants put the pieces together quickly as to what she was: Entertainment. Pangs of sympathy struck the more tender hearts and one of them felt almost sorry for her. She did not occupy an enviable position, nor one known for long term employment.

Jane found something hefty within reach and Loki had to duck, surprised. "You low-level thief! Give me back my things and take these damn shackles off! You promised." Jane blinked and Loki was no longer his nonchalant self as he stalked over to her with predatory purpose. The castle's staff huddled for safety closer to the door. Her courage lasted until his being threatened her personal space and Jane ducked behind a divan for a quasi-barrier.

"Come here, Jane." Impudently, Jane crossed her arms, not moving. Loki wasted no time asserting his master status. One snap of his fingers the chain magicked into being and Jane barely had the time to curse him before it dragged and hoisted up like some animal in the slaughterhouse. Blood rushing to her head slowed her thrashing in time and Jane felt her tongue grow thick and numb.

This was bad. Really bad.

"Firstly, I will remove neither as you, stubborn songbird, did not sing me to sleep but yourself last night. Therefore, I'm under no obligation to release you. Blame only yourself for not keeping your end of the bargain. Secondly," Loki let his fingertips caress Jane's exposed abdominals, her retaliating sluggish swipe missing him by a large margin. Jane struggled upright, stomachic muscles torquing and showing just how flexible she was as she pulled her shirt up and tried to counteract the blood flow. Loki made approving noises in the back of his throat, and then dropped her with a guttural command. Jane hit the floor with a grunt, vision swimming painfully. The prince of this foreign land stood over her, using his foot to force her on her back.

"Secondly, and most importantly, might," his foot pressed down, squeezing the air from her lungs, "is always right." He straightened his back, smoothing out unseen wrinkles and combing his hair in place. As he groomed himself, Jane greedily sucked in deep, racking breaths. Loki had the maids leave the clothes and finish their chores after which he waved them away so he could deal with his troublesome pet from prying eyes.

Dressing himself was a swift, efficient affair, and by the time he sat down on the divan Jane had gathered her bearings. Another sharp wave of his hand sent her topsy turvy and vertigo roiled messily in her stomach, eyes glassy yet defiant. Continuously defiant.

"You have two options woman. Either wear what clothes I graciously give you. Or," he leaned uncomfortably close, his breath unnaturally cool and timbre raptorial. "I strip you here and now and you can follow me in the castle wearing the torc as your only cover." Despite the blood gravitating down, Jane paled a few shades less red.

"Y-You wouldn't."

"Very well then. Live with your choice." Loki made to rise.

"Wait! Wait! I'll, I'll wear the clothes."

"Good girl," he said as he lowered her gently to the floor. Jane scuttled as fast and far away from him as her limbs allowed. Sadistic fingers crooked at her, beckoning her back. For as long as she dared, Jane didn't move but pushing past the limits of Loki's patience and suffering the consequences of his temper did not appeal to her; thus, Jane warily obeyed, a grumpy glare in place. She stopped shy of arm's length.

Loki pointedly nodded his head to the clothes the maid left. His impatient look told her to dress quickly. Jane took the clothes to the washroom and changed, breathing easier when the chain did not materialize. An unadorned cotton shirt and hemp work pants—one layer and single-stitched—were poor guards against mercurial autumnal weather, but the straw sandals were a startling find. She dithered whether to wear them or not. It seemed a cruel farce to have her wear the symbol of freedom—a symbol of freedom in her past life—while still a slave. Jane put them aside. She returned to the atrium.

"I suppose it will do for now," he muttered more to himself than her, clearly unhappy with the clothes she donned. Her stomach growled again and she willfully ignored the food left on the table. Unbidden, a maid came in, took her clothes, and left. Jane's cry of protest went unheeded. She made to follow but the chain clinked into being and she didn't get far. Loki playfully wagged a finger at her.

"You have to earn that, my petite passerine."

Jane gaped at him as he exited the door. She struggled anew. "You can't keep me here! Unhand me!" Loki's fingers wiggled mockingly and though his back was to her, Jane knew he was smirking. Jane shouted expletives as the door closed. Though the chain fizzled away moments later, the doors did not open however much she tried. Her stomach gurgled again and Jane looked longingly at the food. Eating would give her strength and it wasn't like she accepted being here or was grateful for his "generosity". Inhaling teased her with the scent of melted butter on bread and drool flooded her mouth.

_Just, just a bite. Gather my strength._ If she grew too weak, she wouldn't be able to fight him off. Not that her chances were much better at full strength but something was better than nothing. Jane bit down on such thoughts. No matter what if took, Jane swore to stab him in the ribs before she escaped. Or spike his tea with an unhealthy amount of purgative herbs.  
Jane pushed the food away, the fruit and honey going to ash in her mouth. Grief, kept at bay by anger and the whirlwind of events, pressed down in her bones and would not he denied anymore. Memories of Finn's life—he had a fondness for chewing on her hair and fingers to get her attention—tainted by recollections of his death. He just went limp. Floppy and unresponsive yet even in death his body hugged her for comfort from the coming storm, the thunder. Forced to leave him, forced to bear her grief alone without the comfort of her family.

Tucking her feet under her, Jane curled in on her self, shutting the outside world and let herself mourn.

Altering angles of sunlight and shadow told of the passing of time as no chime or clock existed in the room. Grief and anger consumed and fed on one another, gorging on her common sense until the violent haze clouding her eyes washed away and a tornado-swept room greeted her. Pottery shards crunched under foot, honey oozed down the walls, book pages littered the entrance hall, a tapestry pulled down and smoking in the hearth, and the wreckage that was Loki's bed equally amused and scared her. Blood reddened her palm from precise cuts, the culprit probably the glass or porcelain she hurled across the room and then used as cutting utensils. Guilty, bloody fingerprints dotted a number of effects.

Loki would not be happy with her.

That the thought came to her and bothered her was disquieting.

Her body and mind protested the strain, the hurt, the melancholy and Jane just wanted a dark corner where she should cry and lick her wounds. She wanted Kazi, and Baldur and Arco and her puppies young and old—she wanted her family. She wanted comfort and love and maybe even a hug. Make that two.

Thinking hurt. Doing hurt. Feeling hurt. That dark corner sounded enticing and Jane wiggled her way into a small space, knees to her chest and let the tears flow, her silence interrupted by the odd hiccup or sob escaping. Being strong, defiant, was hard, bitter work and after the beating her soul took these past few years, compounded by Loki's actions over the past couple days, Jane found herself sore and tired. If only for a little while, her walls came crashing down. Weakness and want and marrow-deep sorrow were calling her.

Jane answered.

* * *

The walk to his brother's palazzo gave him time to think. Asgard Mountain's castle was an enormity, functioning like a city within the larger confines of a castle and each of the royal members had their own grand chambers—chambers more like a countryside castle molded into the larger entity that was the Castle of Asgard. There were times Loki preferred to walk and when walking he liked to think.

She cried last night. He wasn't even sure she was aware of how much her guard slipped in that moment. She looked fragile, child-like and inescapably young. He forgot how young she was even in comparison to her own kind. Perhaps that is why she ignored the obvious danger he exuded and attempted to help him. Perhaps she was just lonely. Last night showed him facets of the girl he saw in the city, lonely and demonstrative, affection flowing easily from her fingertips and into the beings she touched. When he reached out to her then, on mere whim, she curled into his company and volunteered a beguiling warmth for companionship. By her actions this morning, what was last night was involuntary and forgotten.  
Displeasure grumbled in his chest.

Loki's steps slowed as he analyzed that feeling, turning it over and looking at all its angles and bemused by what he saw. He concluded he did not like his slave's rebuffing of his presence or his gifts. Back in the city, when she accepted him, thought him only bestial, she joked with him, bantered, told him stories, laughed—she was friendly. A friend.

Loki scoffed at the thought and crushed it. He did not seek a friend. He sought an amusement and he did not like his amusements going sour so quickly. While she wouldn't be the first to be promptly discarded he found her fiery disposition jocular, even unexpectedly delightful at times. Who else but she would throw pillows at he? The memory brought forth a mirthful chuckle and Loki let himself smile halfway. He would be careful not to break her least that fire extinguish to soon. However, if he surmised correctly, he could push her quite far and she'd continue to push back despite the futility of her actions.

A ghoulish grin lit up his features. Yes, he saw this working out nicely. His pretty little songbird welcoming him back home each night, he playing tricks and teasing, and watching her sleep at night. He had never done that before, as she only visited him awake and never drifting off or being completely unguarded. She was comely for a mortal and in her slumber gave whistling, soft snores on occasion; in that form she was hypnagogic inducing as her lullabies. She had turned fitfully among the blankets until he stilled her and as soon as she soon sensed his presence, eased into him. As if she's never slept alone. His body enjoyed the feel of her against him and against his better nature, the bestial side compelled him on the floor, petting her, mollifying her, and sharing an equilibrium of calm being near her generated. He drifted off to sleep, one hand still tangled in her hair and half-pressed against her lithe form.

He slept soundly that night.

Loki grit his teeth; he should not be so attached . His beast blood liked her too much but then again beast blood was notoriously possessive of its things and neither he nor it was happy those days she eluded him post-city destruction. The prince sighed and clicked his tongue. Perhaps he should choose his words with more care. Dissociation between himself and the beast blood in his veins did not exist; they were one in the same, and on more than one juncture the prince groused over the fact. On the other hand, she was marvelously fun to play with and that sharp tongue and wit. This mortal did not fear him. A sliver of a canine eked out from his lip as he smiled. Last night and earlier this morning was him reasserting his claim; Jane—the name rolled over his tongue and he tasted it a second longer before he cast it away again—necessitated extra persuasion of the fact if her efforts this morning were any indication. He woke early enough to untangle himself from her person without her knowing. He did not need her screeching in his ear over her imagined slights. Besides, he did not need her for satisfaction nor crave her to fulfill those desires. There were other, more pleasing women available for that.

Still, she had a je ne sais quoi, almost pheromonal essence he could not aptly define, and it filled his body with jittery, conciliative notions, a mire of contradictions. Whatever she was he did not know and he reviled ignorance. Loki wished to understand, to dissect the world's wonders, and he found this mortal wonderfully engaging. He had been dreadfully bored prior to his meanderings and his mind rejoiced its passing. This mortal presented a unique experience he could not remember having previous to his chanced meeting her. Offhandedly, he speculated on her reactions to her new lifestyle. Surely she wouldn't be this volatile once she settled in and accepted life in Asgard.

Who, after all, could dismiss the grandeur that is the Castle of Asgard?

That displeasure in his chest dissipated when he reaffirmed Jane's long-term if not permanent residency in Asgard.

He did not announce himself, entering his brother's chambers with familiarity and imperious authority only slightly justified. Nonetheless, Thor's enthusiastic greeting boomed at the sight of his kin and his arms lifted his younger brother up in a bear of a hug. Loki found himself embracing Thor back; he did miss his brother.

"Brother! Welcome back home," he said, voice bouncing off the cavernous walls in a throaty tenor. Unlike himself, Thor was seldom soft-spoken and Loki attributed it to a plethora of years leading the Asgardian army. A general, let alone a commander, did not speak quietly.

Thor's grin was wide and inviting. "Come, you must tell me of your travels. Mother worried fiercely, as her wont, and had me tour the distant mountains for sight or smell of you. Alas, I did not find you, as per usual. What has kept you away the better part of a year? You have not left the castle for such duration since our youth. Pray tell, what held you attention for so long?"

Thor's friendly touches were a step distant from his mother's pampering though no less loving. He even brought out the good brew and himself poured his brother's stein full and foaming. Crisp, cool and refreshing as Loki remembered of Asgardian beer. The dark-haired shapeshifter made no mention of the chestnut-haired mortal currently locked up in his chambers. She was his find and he did not wish to part with such a treasure yet. He distracted his brother with half-truths, the best kind of lies, and grandiose, exaggerated tales of hoodwinking and hoaxes. From the Rohr Plateau to the Bay of Baldur, Loki wove fact and fiction to wondrous, storyteller effect. Alcohol eased the natural tension in Loki's shoulders, his irenic form draped over the couch while Thor laughed louder, more readily. Curiosity ate at Thor, wondering why his brother skipped over his travels further east in the Midgardian cities.

Loki casually waved his hand. "As for the Midgardian cities, there is no story to tell. Nothing of interest amongst those insipid humans."

Thor smiled, however, his blue eyes belied his keen mind. "Your words rings false, Silvertongue. You say there was nothing of interest in the Midgardian cities to the east yet there you stayed for many moons. Has my foxy brother grown bullish of wit?" Thor's grin dipped into debauched connotations. "Or, have you been charmed by some mortal and wish it clandestine?" The thunderer laughed until he was redder in the face, missing the quick narrowing of Loki's eyes and the twitch at his lips.

"Do not be daft, Thor. Mortals belong where they have always been—beneath us. And not in the way you clearly enjoy." Loki indicated meaningfully to the mortal slaves his older brother had a habit of collecting as spoils of war. More than a few Thor took an interest in were buxom, blonde, and undeniably female. Some of the younger ones filtered in and out of the room, carrying trays of delicacies or pitchers to refill their drinks. They reeked of mortality and none as pleasant as the one in his chambers. Loki sneered at the ones who dared to come too close whereas Thor openly courted them and rewarded them with the hard candies he himself sucked on.

The children's eyes lit up at his rewards and different tongues wagged in thanks, striking Loki with their sincerity.  
They genuinely liked his brother.

The younger brother watched the exchange through half-lidded eyes, equal parts contemptuous and fascinated. Despite their unequal status, Thor gave them sweets and kindnesses and courted them with courtesies Loki did not reciprocate. Loki scoffed at such trivialities.

Thor had more than three score of servants and slaves at his call, spoils of war or from his rare excursions to the slave markets near the Jotunheim border. Out of his need for attention if not affection Thor amassed additional trucklers; he usually enticed his followers via inexplicable charisma, like the pull of smaller objects into orbiting a larger planet, until what was once bondage became a bond. A visceral instinct pulled them to his brother, one even Loki's own servers regularly fell victim to. Much as it irritated Loki, he stoically endured it time and time again. The dark-haired shapeshifter, however, was not without his own sycophants and dutiful vassals. Unlike his brother, he did not regularly engage in the acquisition of servants, slaves or otherwise. His dependents were typically lower-class Asgardian subjects or descendants of helots who worked a number of years to pay for their freedom and some found the work and their lord enticing enough to stay.

Loki had his own charms of persuasion.

Except his newly acquired slave genuinely hated him.

Loki paused in thought, testing theories about giving her candy and gaining a song or smile in return. Remembering the times she would visit him in the cage—the laughter, the grooming, that awe-filled gaze when she looked at him up close for the first time—made him feel restless sitting and drinking with his brother. Drowning those feelings with another draught of ale, Loki put on a smile and concentrated on Thor and his latest martial engagement—a boxing match between soldiers of his regiment and another's. Thor's came out the victors, and Thor gloated with the pride of a father. Loki laughed along with him over the games some of his scouts pulled in his absence, none of them as clever or quick as he though Loki appreciated the attempts in his honor. Meanwhile they were still on kitchen duty, the general not nearly as good-humored as Thor or Loki.

Draining his cup, Thor let his chuckles fade and something more serious replace them. Loki quirked a brow over his brother's silence. Thor had the child-servant leave the pitcher. "Our father is not young but he is healthy; he'll remain on the throne for years to come but other realms grow restless. There is another civil war in the north and that usually means a spillover into our borders. His advisors bicker like children and I do not trust them as I do you. They have their factions and loyalties and none of your charm or intellect. I believe our father, and our King, will have need of our skills down the road."

Loki set down his stein, attentive. "Jotunheim is always at war, if not with themselves than with those at their borders. Such is how it has ever been. But, rare is it that you mention Father's council. I figured you too busy playing war and soldier to notice the other men in power." His words were more statement of opinion bleeding into near fact and Thor knew his brother well enough not to read them as an insult. Thor leaned in closer.

"Councilman Freystadt, branch member of the Freyr clan, died while you were away." Thor enunciation of 'died' did not disguise his suspicions. Loki's eyes narrowed. The Freyr clan had not always been loyal to the house of Odin but neither had they been traitorous or incompetent.

"Any other unfortunate accidents while I was away?"

Thor shook his head. "I do not attend the political meetings and see what you do." Admitting or hearing his deficiencies always put Thor in a bad mood but Loki saw his brother compose himself well and barreled on. "But I have my suspicions about this…death out of a more outlandish rumor than of reason." Loki's posture encouraged him on.

"A rebellion."

Loki laughed. "We have had those in the past. What about this one makes the great and powerful Heir to the Castle of Asgard quake so?"

"Because they are winning." Loki's head snapped round to this brother.

Thor moved to the pitcher and refilled his glass, careful not to spill and that put misgivings in Loki's mind. His brother was not cautious or careful, least of all while intoxicated. The silence stretched on and Loki firmly bridled his questions though one slipped out.

"Who?"

"A joint venture by Jotunheim and the Midgardian free cities."

"You speak nonsense, brother. The Jotunns hate all outsiders and weaker creatures, mortals especially. They have no lost love for each other."

Thor gave him a small nod of acknowledgment. "Aye, but Midgard grows tired of its tribute status and Jotunns hate us most of all. Supposedly they join to defeat a common foe. The far eastern Midgardian cities may not be a part of it or are too far to provide assistance but the cities in the west share common ground with Jotunnheim and us. Midgard no longer wishes to pay tax or tribute for trade or protection and the ugly words that have been spoken these last few years suddenly went silent after you went missing. They offered to help look for you. Offered condolences. And that, I questioned because, because…" Thor held his brother's gaze and spoke his words with heavy conviction. "I believe they are the gutless fiends who poisoned you."

Loki had no words.

He had been poisoned, yes, though nothing life threatening; headaches, nausea, distemper, fits of unclarity. That was part of the reason he left Asgard, to travel to temperate islands where the cure grew. So the diplomates were told of his then absence and for once, he had not lied. He intended to go and seek the cure to his illness himself. Frigga pulled him back last minute, asserting her motherly status and confined him to quarters. Instead, she sent her swiftest messengers in his place.

They were all slaughtered save one who bought the cure and had a private company deliver the medicine. Alas, that soldier died under mysterious circumstances, too, before he could report. Nothing about their attackers was known but chilling evidence remained near the corpses. Those who attacked used a rare poison dart, one of the few weapons effective against a skin changer. Like them. He departed Asgard once he healed, much as it caused Frigga to fret, and what occurred during his travels he kept mum.

Neither said anything.

"Whom have you told?"

"No one," Thor grunted. His theories were just that, theories, and he had no substantiation to affirm their guilt. Plain as day Thor could visualize the cogs rotating in Loki's mind as the younger shapeshifter dissected his words, that cunning intellect bright in his not-just-blue, not-just-green eyes. After some time Loki nodded. "I see," was all he said but there was meaning in the look he gave Thor and the latter exhaled relief. Loki was not dismissing his concern or doubts and would keep a watchful eye out. Slowly their talk drifted back to more mundane topics of family, friends, and Thor dropping hints of knowing just what Loki kept in his quarters albeit with much less tact than their mother. He grew weary of this inquiry and wished to return to his quarters to play with his spitfire pet again and regain some of those pleasant experiences of days past. Thor accepted his excuses though the shapeshifter caught the twinkle in his brother's eye.

At the doors, he leaned in and whispered, "Do I get to meet the mortal soon?"

Loki started, feigning indifference under Thor's grin. When it merely grew, the Liesmith finally growled and snapped out a refusal. Thor's laughter followed him a stretch down the hallway. Touring other parts of the castle cooled his head down. His mother's plethora of gardens. The library. He had ordered his quarters, his occupant, left unattended for the day, allowed time for her to adjust, and he imagined her to be lonely and in want of company by now.

He noticed the honey on the wall first and smelled the burnt fabric that was his tapestry second.

Apparently she got lonelier than he thought.

Loki sighed the way a parent does over a wayward child. He did, however, growl at the sight of his bed. Or what was left of it. For a mortal she had an impressive temper tantrum. Loki half-expected her to emerge like a bull, charging and ranting at his person. The room was deceptively quiet. Nevertheless his keen ears did not miss the ragged breathing in his own room and opening the dresser doors wide revealed the balled up form of his pet. Watery eyes glared at him, her voice hoarse. "Go 'way, turgid troglodyte." She had a way with words, his oscine. Muted eyes took in her form, dried tears and florid nose telltale signs of her emotive state, as well as his mucus-covered clothes now on the dresser floor. Loki quirked an eyebrow, almost smirking at the hiccup that shook from her throat. Dare he say she looked adorable thus, open as a book for him to read and trying to hide behind his linens.

He left her, hearing her sigh of relief as he walked so many paces away. He rang a bell and a valet stumbled through the doors, face ashen at the wanton destruction of the second prince's chambers. Loki instructed the man to fetch some maids and footmen to clean his quarters the rest of the day; he planned to go out. The man jerked a nod and a bow, hustling out to do as bidden. Blue-green eyes centered on her and Jane stiffened. He was too quick. One hand fisted at her collar and he picked her up easy as a kitten, Jane pawing at him weakly. Her outpour of grief earlier wore her out and she struggled to stay conscious. "I hate you! Leggo." Loki paid no mind to her. There was a click of his tongue when he saw the blood on her palms and feet. Truly, his pet had no concept of self-command.

Distantly he recalled when, as a boy, his mother bandaged a stray cat's paw and how it trailed after her in the garden for days, affectionately rubbing against her calves by week's end. Loki set her down on the divan, one of the few things not smashed or set ablaze. When she moved aside, Loki made quick work of the chain and hissed into her ear. "You can either sit her, untethered as I work or I can bind you to the bed and perform a different set of tasks on you." Lies the latter but she didn't know that. The whites of her eyes showed as she nodded and Loki patted her on the head. "Good girl," he intoned, the gentle timbre at odds with his precious hiss. He ordered a set of bandages and tweezers from one of the maids seeping the floors and waited not long.

Jane winced and fidgeted under his ministrations but his grip was unyielding and gaze threatening. Jane tried to take the tweezers and do it herself and Loki just growled something not in her tongue. His meaning required no translation; thus, she meekly allowed him to pick out the shards and clean the blood off her hands and feet. Sterile white gauze wrapped her feet and palms in tight, neat knots and Loki handed back the sanguine stained rag to a maid. Jane refused to give thanks, crossing her arms and looking anywhere but him. If not for him, she wouldn't be this injured, this hurt.

Loki worked his jaw; she was being stubborn.

His nose scrunched at the strong basic scent of cleaning solutions. Staying and breathing in those fumes would give him a headache and he could already feel a pulse throbbing on the side of his skull. Beneath the layers of ethanol and alkaline based solutions was the whiff of milk and honey, which lessened the throbbing when he focused on the latter. "You, follow me." Immediately she went in the opposite direction of he and Loki snorted his aggravation. He picked her up none too gently this time, well-placed warnings to cease her squirming so that she trembled lightly in his arms and nothing else. For balance she had to wrap her arms around his neck and Loki liked how close that brought her perfumed being to him. Each inhale was an aromatic opiate that massaged out the knots in his shoulders and cleared his head. She muttered obscenities about him and they drew a chuckle from him, incensing her further. When she made to pull away the arm looped around her back squeezed her close. He liked the soft feel of his pet.

From his chambers to the nearest water garden was a short walk and Loki preened when stupefaction colored her eyes. Not all the gardens were works of his mother. His pride and place of sanctuary, tied with his libraries, was this water garden he developed as a younger man then preserved and tweaked over the seasons. Loki set her down, expecting gratitude and was greeted with silence. She was too busy looking at koi and playing with the clear blue water to notice him. Snow melted run off from higher up in the mountains down into this pond, giving its startling sapphire color and the chill of the water gave her gooseflesh.

_Where is her gratitude?_ Loki groused, his frown deepening the longer she ignored him to play with the fish. She did this too, back in the city—going off on her own and disregarding his needs. It riled him then and riled him now, but now he was not confined and unable to rectify the situation.

Loki's shadow loomed over her, him being so tall in comparison and she sitting on the stone's edge, feet in the water. Narrow-eyed he considered his options: Pushing her in the pond; relatively drowning her until she _begged_ for his mercy; a merry game of chase—for him anyway—in his bestial form. All those thoughts he dismissed, dissatisfied with the overly violent tendency of them. Mortals were abysmally fragile. One second too long under water or a cut too deep and their life-force dissipated like sand in the wind.

A caged bird still sings but a broken bird will never sing again. He did not want that.

Her wanted her voice; her banter; her wit; her fire; her passion; her reverence. Each one harder to obtain down the list, but he was Loki, Second Prince of Asgard, Trickster and Skin-changer and more than anything, he loved a challenge. Interlacing his hands behind his back and sorting his thoughts, Loki leaned over his mortal pet until his shadow swamped her person and he could read all the fine hairs prickled along her skin.

"You're getting your bandages wet," he admonished, expecting a rancorous rebuttal.

Silence.

Challenging indeed.

"As my chambers are not fit for inhabitation for tonight and most likely tomorrow as well, you'll have to make do in the gardens. You, my pet, are terribly ill-mannered; I hope to correct that over time." Her jaw clenched, working so as not to bite her tongue yet voiceless all the same. "I'll be sure to teach you proper Asgardian etiquette as you will be here for some time." Aside from a white-knuckled grip in the cornerstone of the silica smooth jetty, she did not react. Again with that stubbornness of hers. His patience wore thin.

"Jane."

Names have power. Not just an identification but an identity, a part of your soul, exists in a name. To call someone by a name and not a moniker invites intimacy, familiarity, domination, submission, and a hotbed of associations and inspirations. A name is more than just a name. Which is why he would rarely call her anything else after this and after this he wanted to hear his name from her and little else. He repeated it and against her will, the command in his voice drew her gaze up. Close up he could read the flecks of gold and color in those brown eyes of hers, wary and resilient in her fatigued state as he expected, as he admired. Closer than she was comfortable with he stood almost touching. Loki's breath fanned down to ruffle her bangs for every exhale. Deceptively so, his words were cajoling and genial, threading their way all over her walls looking for cracks and chinks.

"We'll start with the basics. I call you Jane." She flinched as he spoke her name, as if a caress. Intimate. "And you, you will call me Loki." Greener than usual, his eyes were luminous. She had said his name earlier today but the memory was already opaque, distant. He wanted continual affirmation. To hear it again and again. He shouldn't want a commoner to be so informal with him. Only a name and no title. Slaves do not refer to their masters thus, but he didn't care. It was what he wanted.

Jane said nothing, shaking her head and went to turn her back on him. Snake striking fast, his hand fisted in her hair, drawing out a yelp of pain from her, and reeled her close. The growl was more a vibration than an audible sound.

"Say it," he demanded, pulled back further to expose her throat.

Jane's bandaged hands lacked the dexterity to counter his grip. Wetness dabbed her eyes. She gulped down a breath, her voice raw, "Fuck you."

Loki reconsidered. He could be vigilant not to break her.

"Clearly you're parched and can't yet speak properly. Have some water." He pushed her in the pond and when she came up sputtering Loki forced her head back down. He timed it carefully, hauling Jane back up by her clothing collar. Hacking and heaving for oxygen she didn't look as tired anymore. Dull human nails scraped against his forearm leaving faint red scratches.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You're still thirsty I see." Back under she went, splashing and thrashing and getting him nearly as wet as she though his grip remained firm. So much for keeping her bandages dry. He held her at arm's length.

"Well, Jane?" His teeth dug into the 'n' part of her name, biting off the 'a' in a primeval way.

She spat water at him. Loki did not bother wiping it away. He could be patient when it suited him and today he knew exactly what he wanted.

Time shifted into the existence above water and existence below water for Jane, her struggles fading shade by shade in strength until Loki met no resistance when he dunked her.

"Jane."

She coughed out a mouthful of pond water. "Please, stop…Loki."

The shapeshifter grinned, all too pleased with himself. "Good girl."

Jane was boneless, shivering and pliant, in his arms, and fighting another wave of exhaustive sleep. Loki gently set her down on the outer bench of a gazebo, assured that she would not run, even in her condition. He rubbed the wet bangs out of her face, marveling over the ripple effect of his touch and the evening chill. Long streaks of twilight brushed over the garden, the dimness interspersed with colored lanterns glowing mutedly. A simple timed magic spell would have them incandescent by the time true nighttime descended. Loki breathed deep of the mountain air, filling his lungs with the clear scent of water and fauna, alpine air and home. Jane's scent tickled his nose beneath all that.

Loki rolled his shoulders, that well-acquainted visceral want niggling his spine, and he let the shift come. Sharper canines. Bristly hair growing into fur. Elongated nose morphing into a snout. Rearrangement of bones and musculature. Everything thicker, tougher, longer. The antlers always hurt but the pain dulled into a resigned grunt after so many changes, so many years. His skull formed a pedicle, cracking and calcifying in cycles until it and the coronet were strong enough to hold the weight of his antlers. From there the main beam jutted out, his points tapering into lethal tips. Every change came with an analgesic, adrenaline rush and one Loki worked through by trotting after his little mortal who stupidly thought to run as soon as he began to change.

His limbs being much longer and she, exhausted, did not require expounding the effort to run after her, but he did enjoy the light chase and taunting his pet. She was not happy when he picked her up with his mouth and he did not like Jane pulling out his whiskers. Those were sensitive! Loki dropped her inside the gazebo, blocking the exit with his larger physical form. Jane continued to shiver after he dropped her. The wet clothes would chill her through the night.

"Strip," he told her. Whether her reaction was to his words or that he remained capable of speech in his bestial form Loki could not say. Her shock did not last long against the tide of her anger.

"I most certainly will _not_—"

Riiiiiiiip.

Jane underestimated the dexterity Loki possessed in his larger form and more importantly his magical capabilities. Honed canines turned her clothing to scraps and Jane took the little victories she could by plucking out another few fistful of whiskers. Furious and seething with mortification, Jane kicked at his teeth, aiming at the nerves in his gums. Smart little songbird. Loki settled the matter with the hustled hex of etched runic symbols that disintegrated the fibers of her clothes and replaced them with dry ones of his choosing. That Loki was gentlemanly enough to magic her a robe, his robe, did not earn him any points of endearment. Not when he continually sought her humiliation at his caprice.

Jane willed the tears away; she never wanted to cry in front of Loki again. Devils, after all, care not for another's tears.

The canine shapeshifter nodded to himself as he assessed her, his robe swamping her comically. He would have to tailor better clothes for her. His pet would not dress as a mere commoner, certainly not in his presence or in the presence of others where she indirectly represented him. She would look worthy as one of his attention. He curled his form around her so that she fit snuggly into his belly and felt the rise and fall of his breathing. Loki growled a warning when she tried to slip away and then rattled the chain ominously between his teeth when she was on the verge of succeeding.

He ignored her mongrel comment. For now.

Lethargy siphoned the fervency budding in Jane's chest, leaving her drained and fighting a straitening vision. Mind and body lacked congruence as her mind rebelled against the corporeal heat of Loki's canine form while her body leaned into it, beguiled and uncaring of the haunting mind games he played. Unnaturally colored canine eyes stared at her to which Jane scrunched up her nose and stuck out her tongue at him. A wheezy chuckle rumbled his frame. As it was, somnolence leeched at her senses and one by one they blackened as Loki observed her unguarded face. This he savored like fine wine. In sleep, vulnerable and open, Jane's impulses came to life; how she nestled into his belly and sighed, a good sigh, over his canid redolence; how she craved his warmth and the company he provided. That fire within her fluttered cautiously when she thought no one was looking, her fear unmasked.

He loved the contradictions she embodied. His siren of a serin trying to pass itself as a mighty nightjar.

In time, Loki planned to have these impulses present during day, autumn brown eyes cognizant and acknowledging his effect on her. He'd prefer not to have to result to belligerent corrective measures, but if his pet required a strong hand, he would not shy. He could—would—show her his kinder side; the benefits of pleasing one of his status, how gentle his touch could be. If she would not sing presently—but she would, he swore it—then perhaps talking would have to suffice. That caustic barb of a tongue would be a vivacious companion to have in his library; it was so rare he could discuss topics with a wit as swift and sharp as his own. That Jane did not shy from him for all his rough treatment—regrettably so, he would do better in the future; of course he would—made him giddy.

Loki set his muzzle down alongside Jane's side, black gums stretching into a smirk when she leaned onto his snout as one would a pillow.

She liked to read; those scarce instances where she visited him bearing one of her pilfered copies flashed bright in Loki's mind, and he had books. He had three libraries of books and tomes and lexicons and pictographs and grimoires of rarity and beauty beyond mortal comprehension. He would show her these tomorrow.

_Kindness and patience,_ he reminded himself. _Tomorrow_.

Waking up entangled in the forepaws of a canid shapeshifter—who drooled by the way—was not the kind of morning Jane liked. _This better not be a recurrence._

The garden was bereft of any patrol, servants, soldiers, or otherwise. The quiet hinted of a place ensorcelled with sleep, even the crickets who chirped lustily into the night. Now it was peaceful. For the eternity of a minute Jane let herself be deceived by it, but the drool-drenched robe was an unfriendly remembrance of her circumstances. Loki's legato breathing was somniferous and Jane pushed herself away, sorely tempted to kick his exposed ribs. The fact that it would physically hurt her more than him stayed stayed Jane's foot. Running now would only waste energy. So long as she retained this leash and he resided in his larger form Jane could not hope to evade recapture and it was a bitter truth she had to acknowledge. If she wanted to survive, to escape, it necessitated shrewdness. Jane sucked in a steadying breath.  
Indomitable will. Where all else failed, this would get her through.

Verses lined with the silhouette of her mother and the mettle of more than just memory welled forth; speaking them aloud gave them shape and her a steroidal infusion of courage.

_"No one is beat till he quits,_  
_No one is through till he stops,_  
_No matter how hard Failure hits,_  
_No matter how often he drops,_  
_A fellow's not down till he lies_  
_In the dust and refuses to rise._

_Fate can slam him and bang him around,_  
_And batter his frame till he's sore,_  
_But she never can say that he's downed_  
_While he bobs up serenely for more._  
_A fellow's not dead until he dies, _  
_Nor beat till he no longer tries."_

The sough of water was her only reply and for that Jane was grateful. Loki drooled on while she went to wash up near the pond. Loki yawned awake moments later and stretched into his humanoid self.

"Good morning, Jane." She splashed the pond water on her face, rubbing away sleep and gargling out her morning breath as much as possible.

"Morning," she spat. A large hand with minutely longer and infinitely more aciculate nails touched her neck and lingered. Loki's breath was deceptively cool in her ear.

"Good morning. _Jane_."

Jane gulped and reminded herself to play by his rules. For now. "Morning. Loki." She spoke his name as a sullen mumble and growled when she felt him pat her head.

"We'll have to work on that. Now come along. We'll break our fast in the library."

"Why do I have to join you? Go find some other—You have a library?"

Smirking to himself, Loki reeled her curiosity in by expounding on all the subjects his library housed, catching how her eyes lit up at the mention of far-flung lands and astrology. He filed away that information for later. Like a trail of breadcrumbs, Loki lead her to his central library, with dangling tidbits of book titles and quoted excerpts with thespian candor. His gait gained a swagger as she slipped questions and requests for more. Everything stopped when he threw open the doors to his main library. He grew smug over her slack-jawed response.

While his pet toured the bookshelves nearest the oriels, Loki conjured parchment to compose a writ, informing the scullions on what he wished to break his fast and where to bring the provisions as well as a set of day clothes for his companion. Shallowly slicing the pad of his thumb caused blood to trickle out and he used it effectively as one would a wax seal. Another few gestures transmitted the parchment down to the kitchens.

Jane had not given him a second thought after entering the library, too busy digesting what books she could read and gazing longingly at those in obtuse languages dead and beyond her. Open for her audience of one to see, authentic smiles bloomed with every new title she read, a tiny pink tongue darting out when a particular book caught her fancy. Those above her reach drew dragon-snorting and huffing from her, then a triumphant exhale when she stood on top of a rickety assemblage of furniture to reach new heights. Across the room, Loki watched, fascinated. He had never seen her thus. Jane collected a precarious armful of books by the time their food arrived. Jane gave it an indifferent glance and went back to perusing titles, her fingers mimicking the engraved titles on his leather bound editions of "The Heavens of Midgard" volumes one through four.

Loki draped himself on one of the divans as if it were a dais and proceeded to serve himself tea. He had gone through three cups and a heavily jammed slice of bread before Jane wandered by close enough for him to snatch. He closed the book.  
"Hey! I was reading that!"

"And now you're not. It is time for breakfast." While his tone was civil, Loki's posture dared her to get out of her seat. He shooed her behind a bookcase to change into the newly arrived attire and worked his way around her protests by chicanery and the sinister green glow smoking from his fingertips. Upon her return, Jane leaned back into her seat and sat in the chair furthest from him. She'd rather not be kicked out of his library because he had the maturity of a child but she would not engage him in all his twisted little games. Jane looked quizzically at the assortment at the table. She recognized most of it.

"Prosciutto," he clarified. "Cured ham sliced exceptionally thin." Steepled hands formed under his nose and against his mouth. He looked expectant.

She didn't touch anything.

His face curdled into the beginnings of a frown, stopped, and then his poker face came back into play. Loki sipped his tea. He made a dramatic show of eating a slice. "It's not poisoned. See?" Jane snapped up a glare at him and told him to choke on it. His shoulders shook in a soundless chuckle. "I can't have you fainting on me half-way through the day. Are you telling me I have to find another way to get this food down your throat?" She looked positively mortified and his mirth erupted into an honest reverberation. Jane hastily stuffed down a slice, taking no chances of it being a joke or not.

Salty as cured meat is but silky in texture, with the slices of fat thin enough to melt from the heat of her mouth alone. It was _good_. She's never eaten anything of such fine quality before and the sensations on her tongue were delectable. In the back of her throat hummed a faint moan of pleasure and she served herself another slice and some bread and honey, too. She was famished! Sipping the last portion of her drink Jane blinked to find Loki staring. He did that often and Jane did not like being on the receiving end of it. What's worse was it seemed to be becoming an ingrained habit of his. Jane licked at the lingering drops of milk on her bottom lip and shifted uneasily. "What?"

He took his time answering. "Have you truly never eaten this fare before?"

Jane rolled her eyes. "You're not that stupid, Loki. You know there are people in this world that are not blessed with wealth and the means to acquire these items." Saying it aloud made her pause and Jane pushed the mug of milk away, guilt bludgeoning her stomach.

"I am well aware the status of our world, mortal," he snapped. "But your former owner did not lack in that way. Did you not pilfer items, food, that would not be missed?" Jane grew as angry as he over his implied slander against her integrity.

"While he deserved any unseen slights given to him, no, I did not, do not steal. What I gained was rightfully mine. Even as unscrupulous beasts try to take it from me." The barb did not go unnoticed though his mien was unconcerned.

"We've discussed 'rights' and what constitutes it. Your argument fairs poorly in light of reality, dear Jane," he said as he brushed at some crumbs.

Jane's white-knuckled grip kept her seated. "Just because all others descended into madness did not mean I had to follow. I am more than capable of making my choices. I am not a blind sheep willing to follow a shepherd to the slaughter just because he wields a staff and a dog with sharp teeth."

"Yes, that does sound like you," he murmured. He poured another cup of tea, pushing it towards Jane and took no slight when she did not accept his proffered cup. It sat on the table and wafted steam. Perhaps she didn't care for lemon tea. He sipped his own drink, bored with her monologue of righteousness. "So, are you telling me that no matter the circumstances you'll remain untainted and pure of heart? How heroic of you."

Jane snorted. "No one can; I don't see why you should expect different of me."

"But you—" He looked genuinely puzzled by her reply.

"I kept my head most the time but not always. I said I didn't steal and I didn't lie. Doesn't mean I didn't do what I had to to survive. Like stabbing a master in his ribs." She spoke the last sentence hypothetically, cheerfully so. "I would most certainly stoop to that level of madness before bolting."

Loki smiled indulgently at her, delighted by this turn of events he had not foreseen. "And you think yourself capable of murder, songbird?"

"Mortals," her voice grew hard, "are capable of anything given the right circumstances. I think you're about to learn that the hard way."

"Hmm. How foreboding." His lips twitched up in true trickster-inspired fashion. "You enjoy it here in the library, yes?" The earlier bravado fled and Jane shuffled her true desires behind an incoherent mumble of deflecting statements and insults.  
Loki rolled his eyes; his pet was an atrocious liar. "Never mind. I ask the obvious. Very well, you are to go choose a book, read it, and come back here and we discuss it. Understand?"

Perplexed, Jane tilted her head. "You, want me to educate myself and argue academics with you?" He said naught and sipped his tea. "We'll stay in the library today, tomorrow as well. Do not leave through those doors without my explicit permission. I will give you free reign of this facility given you make progress on your manners."

"My manners are impeccable. It is _you_ who acts like a brutish marauder, deficient of any virtues and chock-full of only vices."

Loki's grin grew teeth. The vitriolic parlance of his pet was not to be underestimated. Jane waited not for his dismissal and snatched her book from him and stalked off to a distant part of the library to read. She ignored the stare needling her right between the shoulder blades. She rather expected him to hit her for speaking thus; not to smile. His actions fostered a scowl on her face. Whatever his intentions, Jane cared not. He would grow bored with her, this she had faith in; his personality stunk of childish immaturity and short attention spans. She would not fascinate him for too long and as soon as he turned his back on her Jane would be gone and he wouldn't care. This was just a passing fancy and one she had to ride out.

From across the room, Loki continued to stare over his teacup, a smirk darkening his features. "Fascinating…"

.

.

.


	4. Chapter 4

**General editing done. Nothing major.**

**Hawkz**

* * *

_A Kindness: Chapter 4_

_Huff Puff Huff Puff Huff Puff…_

He hissed and held his side; of all times to get a stitch. According to Kvasir he should drink less but the old man was not as wise as he liked to think. Bragi sucked in a few steadying breaths and resumed his brisk jog, belly and beard bobbing. Thick, sausage-round fingers wiped at the sweat lacing his brow. Damnable staircases, he swore as his knees protested the strain. His girth made the steam-powered elevator groan and breakdown after so many rides. Meanwhile Bragi would suck and puff at his clay pipe and woe poor craftsmanship as a number of helots scrambled to get the machinery running again. They were still fixing it—new hands, all green thumbs—leaving him to bobble up and down the stairs.

The grand oak doors swelled into his vision and knowing who lay behind them made him rush. Bragi did not knock.

"Fool! What sort of imbecilic madman are you? Physics doesn't work like that." There's a scoff. Female? "Oh, don't even. Magic is just science we have yet to fully understand. Something does not come from nothing. Matter doesn't work like that. Matter may be broken down but it never truly vanishes. Take a cremated body. From fat, water, muscle and sinew we come away with smoke, ashes and particles smaller than the eye can see but nothing is truly lost. It just takes alternate forms, some beyond our current knowledge."

"Don't be daft woman; your supposition ignores truths in this world." His prince! Bragi would know that caustic, smirking tone anywhere. "Magic is not science. Magic is not something precise and calculable like your alchemy. Even alchemists—the smarter ones—admit a semblance of the supernatural into their studies. They would be ignorant fools not to. You cannot explain teleportation or the casting of spells with your so-called science. Besides, in order to create the world, did we not have to start from nothing? You presume the being exists without the need of a creator or the act of creation."

"Do you not hear the ludicrous lies and contradictions you spout? If we have a creator, then we never started from nothing. Your very counterargument supports my claim! As for my science, not yet, that is true. My science is incomplete thus far, but it doesn't mean we won't discover how down the line. That is why scholarship exists—to study the unknown. Through theory, trial, error and re-correcting our mistakes we learn. Something your kind is surely incapable of. You exemplify your race in ignorance and arrogance personified, not to mention you fail to rectify your flaws and transgressions. When change happens, I hope it is bloody enough to topple you from your false throne. Permanently."

The woman's voice was vicious and harpy sharp with her wit. Bragi expected to find a bloodstain as he got closer, but, of all reactions, Loki laughed. It had been days since his lord's return, and almost a year of his absence, but Bragi was not sure anything could alter his prince's foibles.

"M'lord?" Bragi's voice startled the woman but Loki looked up and smiled as if expecting him. He probably had been as the portly poet was not known for his laconicism or subtleties and likewise burst through the library doors. The prince moved into a standing position with that liquid grace of his and clapped the Asgardian's shoulder as a familiar, as a friend.  
Suspicion darkened Jane's gaze.

"Bragi, good fellow. It took you long enough. I expect the others to hear of my return shortly and barrel through the door more tactfully than you." The mockery, the veiled condescension, that smirk of a smile; it was Prince Loki all right. The poet felt tears sting his eyes. How could he ever have believed those vile rumors? Lardaceous torso notwithstanding, Bragi wrapped his beefy arms around Loki and squeezed him tight. His prince was taller but between the girth and enthusiasm of Bragi, the poet managed to sweep Loki off his princely feet. Prince Loki bore it for a few seconds then grunted at his vassal to let him go. The poet did, smiling all the while.

"Oh, this is marvelous. We shall have to commemorate the occasion! Dancers. Comely maidens. Food! Wine! Why we will…" Bragi looked at the woman—_girl?—_behind his prince and recognition arched his eyebrows into his receding hairline. She wore his prince's collar. That was new. Bragi squinted his eyes at her. Such a tiny thing. "A souvenir from Midgard?"

The mortal leapt to her feet, brown eyes afire. "I most certainly am not! I am no one's possession, least of all his. Slavery is a gross, barbaric tradition and you should be ashamed to associate yourself to a society that applauds it continuity. I would—mpghrrgg!"

Bragi squeezed in on himself the closer the mortal came, even flinching from her accusing finger until Loki snaked one arm around her waist to pull her close and another across her mouth to silence her. She writhed in his hold to no avail.

"Yes. She is proving most entertaining. And as you can see makes quite the debate partner. Such passion." One of her hands goes up to swipe at his neck and Loki leaned back out of its reach, chuckling. He rearranged his embrace so that Jane could only kick and glare to showcase her displeasure. Bragi drunk in the sight before him, eyes going from his lord, to the woman in his hands, back again, repeat. He had underestimated the boredom leeching at his prince's mind if he required the attentions of mere mortals. Bragi's eyes skittered across the littered piles of books and scrawled notes and diagrams and empty plates of food and pitchers. Time, much time, had been spent here. But, just the prince and the mortal? Why had his prince not called for him, for his vassals. Bragi frowned, confused, at that. As Prince Loki's vassal and self-titled courtly bard, Bragi considered it his mission to entertain his prince and delight his mind. He failed to see the appeal of this creature in his prince's arms and her presence stung the poet's pride.

"Bragi," Loki spoke, ignoring the mortal pulling vindictively on his fingers with single-minded intent to break them. "I'll spend the rest of the day at the library and meet with my cortege if not this evening, then on the morrow. Inform the others of my intentions." Getting nowhere finger-wise, she moved onto gouging his eyes. Loki growled low at Jane. "Behave, songbird." The glare in her eyes was reply enough. His bondsman genuflected and went to do as bidden, although not without another curious look at the mortal woman his prince held close.

Bragi wondered about that.

Loki watched his vassal go, and when the doors shut behind him he met Jane's glare with a half-lidded stare of his own. He was not quite smiling. "I see we need to work on your manners some more, pipit." Jane bit at his hand, her dull human canines holding the sting of a mosquito bite. He pouted at the red outline of her teeth on his hand. "Well, now, that's not nice."

"Let go." Jane thought about it for a minute and the conclusion she comes to makes her nose wrinkle. "…Loki." He takes his time about it but his arms do fall from her person and Jane wastes no time in putting a more comfortable distance between him and her. The dark-haired prince makes a show of his wounded feelings.

"We were making such progress. You even sat near me as we debated."

Jane flushed red, equal parts angry and embarrassed. "That was because you kept pulled on the chain when I made to move away! How about some personal space."

"What do you think I was doing? My actions made sure to keep you in my personal space. There I was feeling cold and lonely. You are not very attentive to your master's needs, little lark."

Her voice was all venom. "Then find another woman for your troubles and leave me be, shapeshifter." Oppressive silence itches under her skin as his face went cold and Jane wondered what other, invisible line she's crossed now. He had so many, the prickly pear. Boldly, stupidly, Jane held her ground. Loki did that quickstep his kind is capable of and Jane suppressed a flinch. He didn't touch her but when he leaned down his face was uncomfortably close, nose a hair's breathe from touching hers.

"I have no interest in such activities with you, Jane, nor do I wish to harm you; however, continue to flaunt my authority and we'll see just where you fall." More than anything she wanted to slap him. Her hand trembled and it was not out of restraint. She fisted it close.

Truth be told, though, Jane _did_ fear this man. What he was adept at doing and what he could do and the thought of being touched by him made her stomach roil in the most unpleasant of sensations. She had no desire to cross that line. Ever. What is more, Jane needed him to relax his guard enough for her escape. She couldn't do that by always fighting him; it wore her out and one day his temper might slip and his hand will hurt her. Fatally.

She wasn't being smart by being aggressive. Beating Loki would take cleverness and wit. Nine times out of ten she will lose against him. She was betting on chance.

Jane looked away, her posture submissive and chary even as clenched fists hung by her sides. Let him read that as tense fear. It, unfortunately, was not a lie.

Nine times out of ten, she'd lose against him. That meant she had a chance and when he wasn't on guard, she was going to take it. Over and over again until freedom was hers once more.

Loki kept his cool gaze on her, internally satisfied with Jane learning her place. She wasn't broken, too much fire in her for that, but gradually Loki would have his mortal recognize and submit to his command. He looked forward to reinforcing that rule. He gave her head a gentle pat and felt her flinch under his hand. His timbre was low, more of a rumble than a verbalization. "I told you I mean no intention of harm upon your person. I do not wish to use violence against you."

"But drowning me is acceptable," she snapped, not looking at him.

"That was, regrettable, but necessary. I would prefer not to teach you via force. Alas," he sighed. "You have such a strong will, I suppose it's inevitable." She leapt from under his touch, eyes wide and true fear paling her features. Loki's grin grew teeth.

"But…" he tempted.

Jane swallowed and took the bait as the silence stretched on. "But?"

"I am open to persuasion. I never did get that lullaby." From the bemused look on her face, she didn't quite get his hint. Loki internally sighed. His little lark could be obtuse for all her philosophical wit. "Persuade me with song, my dear Jane. Sing and I will reconsider any thought of abuse should the time come. After all, I can't force you to sing." And yet his tone and body language said that he was more than capable of enforcing his will the traumatic way.

Jane shuddered.

_Play by his rules, play by his rules. Short term loss, long term gain._

It was, nevertheless, difficult to swallow when his eyes glowed as they did, more green than blue at whatever demonic thoughts played out in his mind. Here she was making deals with the devil.

She couldn't pretend that whatever tonic he offered wasn't laced with poison. Devils don't make deals for the benefit of others.

"I don't know that many songs," she muttered.

Loki examined his fingernails with bored disinterest. "I'm sure you'll think of something. My libraries house a collection with no rival in this or any other land—epic poems, stories, lyrics, and ballads from more ancient and modern times. Find something acceptable. Delight me. I'm sure we can work something out."

Jane gave neither scathing reply nor an affirmation.

Perhaps she was learning her place faster than he anticipated. Shame. He would miss their tit for tat if she got too biddable. He shook his head. Thoughts for another day. Loki made to wave her over to resume their lively debate but Jane had retreated to more distant shelves. He did not see her, did not even hear her part. Curiously fast when she wanted to be it seemed. He called her name.

No reply.

Loki heaved a sigh and made a show of pulling to his feet. His steps were unrushed as he winded from shelf to shelf, peering down the aisles for a flash of braided brown hair. Jane was either slower in wit than he presumed or more of a stubborn fool than he credited. She hadn't left the library, his ears would have noticed; however, by walking barefoot on the tile she made it difficult for him to locate her.

Why she didn't take the sandals or slippers he offered made no sense to Loki. She had no shoes as a servant to that other mortal. Why did she keep rejecting his largesse? Days into her new status tempered her little. The food. The clothing. Loki shook his head. He would reflect on such matters only if she continued being unyielding down the line. Loki ascended the stairs and searched the second floor, peering over furniture and down darkly lit aisles.

He flat out stumbled when he found her where he did and reading that particular book.

"What are you doing?" His voice was deep, almost edging into accusing. Jane flinched but didn't rise from her sitting position. Her fingers curled around the book's cover defensively.

"Reading?"

"Fairy tales?" he intoned. Her response to puff out her cheeks, both gone red, had him smothering a chuckle. Loki rose up his hands in mock surrender. "Which ones?" He sat down, joining her on the marble. Close but not touching.

Jane let her eyes fall back to the book in hand. It awed Jane to think of what sorts of titles and ancient tomes resided within these shelves. Spellbound and envious Jane felt. Did he ever appreciate what he had? Could he? No, Jane did not think so.

Brown leather dark from age and use, though less so in recent times; a flawless crimson red ribbon stuck near the end of the book; crinkly fragile-looking pages; luxurious, detailed pictures of characters and castles: Magic and fine craftsmanship held this book together for scores of years past and many more to come. The unusual spelling—using come k's instead of c's or capitals where there shouldn't be—gave way the book's true age: Before Jane's time, before the standardized time of the Modern Common Tongue. However, Jane was quick of wit and well versed in morphology—linguistic skills owed to her mother, scientific ones to her father—more so than one would think possible given her station. For all his greed her former master had been a smart man with a vast library. Her parents, bless their souls, encouraged her intellectual pursuits and long hours at the city library; her mentor tolerated her longing stares at book and scrolls, and in moments of mushiness, capitulated and let her skip her last chore for the day for stolen moments in the master's library. Stern and brash with the switch, he still let her get away with much; a blessing for her compared to the tales she's heard.

Ignorant in land treaties, economics, languages, far-flung cultures, Jane could read and write, recite stories, so many stories, understood basic mathematics and scientific facts, and knew many other things. Trade skills she had in spades and animal skills second to none.

But here, in Loki's library, Jane felt woefully ignorant and the crushing admittance to the fact sat like too many swallows of brackish water. Earlier, Jane read in Loki's conceit that he knew the contents of all these books and welcomed any opportunity to verbally put down another. Yet, time and again Jane understood that he would bait her into debate and time and again she would fall for it, hook, line, sinker. He was too infuriating a male to ignore.

For now, though, he looked truly curious. Jane met his stare but did not hold it. Her eyes gained a far away gleam as she recounted nights of her mother whispering fantasies and adventures and cautionary tales. Sometimes they weren't fairy tales as much as merely tales.

"I…I liked the ones with adventures. Quests. Intelligent heroes and heroines…" Jane allowed her voice to die. She had no desire to share such personal memories with Loki. They were too precious to her and he too wicked to deserve them. The shapeshifter thought differently. He pulled impatiently on her sleeve like a child and appealed for more information, albeit more demanding than asking.

Reminiscent of a sulk, Jane ground her teeth. "They're just stories, Loki. It doesn't matter."

"It matters because I want to know." His eyes were gaining that cool, dead gleam Jane came to associate with the calm before the pain. "Tell me," he inquired softly, the steel in his question poorly masked.

A spine-trembling reaction of fear clouded her thoughts. Jane swallowed painfully. Her throat was dry and tongue thick. He was too close. Why was he so close? Jane dug her nails into her palm and dull as they were, the bite of pain defogged her mind.

"Often times, they were more anecdotes than stories. One such story I enjoyed was about the two debaters." Her voice lilted in cracks and pitches, however much she cleared her throat. The warmth of magic tingled in Loki's palm and Jane saw a cup of steaming tea sitting serenely at its center.

He extended it to her, a peace offering.

Eyes on the prize, then to his face, then back down again. He conjured a kettle too, and an extra cup. It smelled divine, heady and steeped with spices.

She didn't take it.

"Spiced chai tea. They stir in condensed milk so it is rather sweet and there are extra cinnamon sticks if you prefer. It is best in winter, but I find a cup drunk at any time of the year to be soothing." The fumes of tea beguiled better than any traitor of paradise, Loki's voice bewitching in its low tenor. He was courting a phobic, wild animal and knew just how to charm.

Jane looked longingly at the cup. Thirst gurgled in the back of her throat, carving carking fissures between the wants of her body and mind. She hadn't drunken much all day, though it remained morning if just, and that meat had been terribly salty. Loki seemed too fond of watching her eat that cured ham, always serving it at the breakfasts they shared these past few days.

Loki's face was bereft of any underhanded ploys, smothered in an honest smile; Jane trusted that face least of all. She looked back down at his open-palmed hand.

Jane took the cup.

Loki's grin grew wider and wider as he drank in her expressions after that first and subsequent sips. The splendors of Asgard were not all masonry and horticulture, and he held numerous cards of seduction up his sleeve. He hid part of his smile behind his own cup, feeling now a little more patient to hear her story. Just a little.

Jane licked her upper lip for that extra drop. Ginger, cloves, a hint of nutmeg, that sweet milk, cardamom and high grade black tea; there were more spices but Jane was not sure she could name them all. Awash in all these flavors, the pot was halfway gone when she noticed Loki leering at her over the rim of his own cup.

Jane had difficulty swallowing after meeting that look.

She dare not call him out on it for scores of reasons, the more important ones being that she refused to admit the fact, or confront Loki about such horrifying notions. Besides, talking with Loki appealed to her as much as getting the plague. (Scratch that, she would prefer the plague.) Talking to him, perhaps she could bear. In reciting any story Jane might close her eyes and imagine any one, any thing, other than her current companion. Imagination held might, the power of the mind over the body. It got her through all those years under her former master—who is to say it wouldn't get her though Loki as well?

Jane drew in a deep breath and whispered it out in words, her lilting locution enthralling Loki same as before.  
"Never in all there years since their initial clash at the town tavern had the village priest or the village atheist gotten along. Each bellowed bear-like at the other, deriding his given profession. They spoiled many evenings with their ill humor regarding one another. The village was quickly losing patience with these two, amicable as they could be by themselves. A woman stepped forth with a proposal. The men agreed.

"Every autumn when the leaves burnish brightest, a kaleidoscope of scarlet hues, misty yellows and oxidized oranges, the townsfolk gathered for an annual celebration of literary delights. Storytellers, puppeteers, bards, men and women of letters, poets, singers—for a night, these folks replaced the nobility in respect. They received free mead and beer, greasy pork shoulder and coy, playful kisses by the village maidens and mothers. Gaiety and revelry as only smaller towns truly appreciate and excel."

Loki reckoned Jane a type of sorceress, albeit her powers of a more lexical sort. Weaving words to ensorcell her audience like a siren, his songbird. Sentiments he never planned to fully reveal; she did not merit access to his private thoughts.

"During such a festival, the men would debate. The priest would argue his beliefs as would the atheist. Three old wise men and three even wiser women would decide a winner. The whole town crowded in the landowner's ranch, crowding in makeshift benches and children spider crawling over the nearby quarry, which jutted limestone ridges and slabs. The youngsters dangled over the rock, straining for better views. Bets passed hands over winner, loser, who would throw the first punch in rage. Priest and atheist shifted on the balls of their feet like boxers anxious for a fight.

"They argued passionately, lustily. Alcohol in their veins aside, each man housed decorum in his soul and respected the debates rules, silently waiting for his turn to misprize and mimic his opponents. The audience cheered and booed at turns of sagacity and well-placed barbs, but never did they twist into a malicious mob, eager for the torment of the priest and atheist.

"Rhubarbs over creation, God and gods, individual, free will, Fate, mortality in the face of divinity, morality in the face of reason went back and forth to persuasive effect. Their words moved the judges. Their words moved the audiences. Their words moved each other.

"So moved were the men from his opponent's words that at the end of the debate, the priest became the atheist and the atheist became the priest."

Her audience chuckled in delight, crow's feet crinkling at the edge of his eyes. He refilled her cup via a graceful arc of hot tea, not spilling a drop. Innocuous on the surface, Loki bore an open countenance.

He wanted another.

Jane slurped noisily at her tea, an irate tic tweaking her brow. Of course he did.

The Midgardian sighed, slumping further into her slouch. When Jane contrived tales she had a tendency to sag as if becoming drowsy or the very least relaxed. Those days when she only knew his bestial self, her boneless form would lean into his belly and radiate content as she wove words with practiced, careless ease. Loki's frown—already in place at his songbird's unsightly manners; another flaw he must fix—wrinkled a further degree in a subconscious acknowledgement that those days could not be relived. Not with Jane in her current state of mind. Two bony fingers idly trailed the rim of his cup and Loki refused to feel upset at the thought.

The skin changer closed his eyes, breathed out his vexation, and opened them again. His brown-haired pet gazed at another old book with sweet nostalgia, her words soft, undoubtedly meant for her ears alone.

"I know this one…"

He shifted so that his cooler bodily heat intermingled with hers. Although Jane tensed and drew back, the shelves and Loki's reach for the book caged her in place. Obscured by the tilt of his head and cascade of sable hair Jane did not see his expression.

Her heartbeat was a mash-up of marcato and fortissimo beats. For all her bravado then, his little lark did experience fear. He filed away that knowledge for later. Loki soaked in the sounds of her breathing—deceptively calm minus that quivering hitch—and heartbeat as he observed the illustrated page.

Only illustrations. Loki turned the page. Pictures. Another page. Pictures. This book was newer than the rest, slim and handsomely bound in cheery red leather smooth as a woman's cheek. The larger tome she cast aside for a book Loki could not place. Where or when he bought such a trinket eluded him. Since when did he purchase picture books? Had a servant bought the incorrect title? He leaned further in; unaware of Jane's stiffening so concerned was he on this strange work. There were only pictures and they did not go as one expected in stories. They illustrated no sequence of events singularly or put together as each picture was a flash point in time and whole only on its own. It offered more questions than answers to his inquisitive mind.

He looked up, frowning. "There are no words."

"How observant of you." A canine tooth leaked out at her sarcastic monotony. Impudent mortal. Loki's hand rested on her thigh and he smelled fear, heard the escalation of her pulsations. Through the clothing Jane was acutely aware of his nails, each longer and darker than human nails, tapering into claws. His touch was cold. Jane quietly swallowed.

"Enlighten me then, warbler."

"No, I don't—" His claws tightened minutely. Jane bit off the rest of her excuses as fear paralyzed everything. Involuntarily she trembled beneath his touch and tightening caress.

"Lies, my little lark. Lies." They were easy to spot on her tongue, she being an atrocious liar. His smirk widened into a grin and Loki liked how her pulse spiked and jugular visibly jumped when his hand moved to her face. She leaned back further into the shelf, going nowhere.

He bopped her on the nose.

Jane cracked open one eye, perplexed. Loki encouraged her to open both of them.

"You know these tales."

"No, they're just pictures—"

He bopped her again, a little harder this time. "Lies sound foul on your tongue, songbird. Do not utter them. You recognize these pictures. You know the words behind the page. Stories. Tales. Tell me." Loki spoke softly, not sweetly, and Jane heard his command plain as day.

She held the book closer to her chest. A small, powerfully loud voice shouted no. This was too precious to give away to an outsider. To him. He who was so cruel and gave kindness to no one did not deserve these tales. Jane looked down at the pictures. Any one initiated to her culture could recite these fables and verses. They existed long before reading was commonplace and their continued existence ensured a binding thread between her people. They were more than stories. They were precious. But not to him. Mere words to pass the time to him. He would not, could not appreciate them. So why should she tell him?

The hand on her thigh pressed in a little further.

Right. That.

"You're delaying songbird."

"You don't deserve to know." That spark of resistance kept commanding her tongue at the most inopportune moments, yet Jane felt braver for speaking them.

The easy posture of Loki was no longer there.

Jane felt foolishly brave.

"Three things not easily restrained—the flow of a torrent, the flight of an arrow, and the tongue of a fool." Loki's hand glided up her body, not quite touching but close enough Jane felt his chill. It stopped at her neck, the collar. He brushed the collar in long, implied strokes with his thumb. Her pulse pounded. "Would you like to see how unrestrained I can be?" The collar glowed warm with warning. Magic.

Damn that spark of resistance. She was courting death in all the wrong ways. Could she not follow her own advice for a freaking day? Jane fought for discipline and focus. She had a goal in mind and kept tripping over her own bootlaces before making a step. She really was a fool.

Space was tight with Loki so close. Jane presented him the book, a bare nudge in his direction but the implication clear. A moment of pause, then he delicately took it.

"Choose a picture," she told him. He flipped to a random page, an image of a fox and a hound. One shuddering breath latter, Jane revisited all the memories associated with these images. Dusty shelves of knowledge though nothing lost, just vague. They came clearer the more images Loki pointed to. His pet reacted more emotionally to some woeful tales than he. A few pages more he came across a sky full of geese and the silhouette of a man tilting his head back in wonder and envy.

_"Happy the wild birds that can soar_  
_ To sea and mountain, freely roaming;_  
_ Wing where they will, and what is more,_  
_ No awkward questions after homing."_

His lips tipped into a smile at that one. His thumb breezed past more pages. Gremlins. Dwarves. Elves. Men. Women. Children. Mischief managed and villainy thwarted. Spells and cunning. Duplicity and probity. Jocularity. Severity. Sorrow. Happily-ever-after. There was nothing this book left out. Loki wondered how he did not know it, if there were more books in his collection he neglected.

Taunting sheep jeweled in riches ran circles around a ragged, bearded shepherd.

_"When my life was thrifty, thrifty,_  
_ Soon my one sheep grew to fifty;_  
_ After that I lived for fun_  
_ And found my flock was back to one."_

Jane blushed deeply at the next picture, why Loki did not understand until the verses flowed, however muttered and muffled from her chagrin. But as the poem progressed affection and sympathy animated her recitation.

_ "Praised beyond all Enids be _  
_ Lady Morfudd, my lovely. _  
_ I burn with more than a fire _  
_ From the torch-light of her hair, _  
_ And yet, her touch as it fell _  
_ Was almost-virgin-gentle. _

_Around my neck white arms went; _  
_Her red lips were impatient. _  
_That kind of kissing has come, _  
_So more than mild, most seldom. _  
_Her poet-prisoner, frail _  
_In her wine-sweet body-gaol, _  
_So I, though I do not tell _  
_All truth of the miracle. _

_So, in the bonds of the bright _  
_Of her arms, all snow-drift white, _  
_She was imprisoning me _  
_All courtly, lightly, gently. _  
_Who would want to stir _  
_Out of her hold and halter? _  
_Who would want to move _  
_Out of that lock-up love? _

_And how could a man do better _  
_Than submit to this fetter, _  
_These gyves, this white-snow-gentle _  
_Link and loop of the circle, _  
_Chain and charm of the shackle, _  
_Feather-threat of the throttle, _  
_Wrist-hold, kiss-bold tether _  
_Keeping us close together? _

_Each man thinks he knows best _  
_Of Arthur's loveliest — _  
_Tegau of the golden breast, _  
_Dyfyr of the golden hair, _  
_Enid, the radiant girl, _  
_Daughter of Yniwl the Earl. _

_But I, Dafydd the dark, _  
_The swarthy one, soot-sallow, _  
_The too black crow-skin fellow _  
_Rise over them all, and follow _  
_Companioned only with _  
_My marvel, my Morfudd, _  
_So follow, and so fare _  
_Towards that wider air _  
_Rimmed by the gold-white arc. _

_How bountiful…How blest…"_

Not all rang of rhyme and doggerel. More than a few of the simplest images bore the longest legends and sagas, others were moral parables, simple yarns meant to amuse and untruths of the most questionable tastes. Why would wolf need to blow down houses to eat pork belly? Just the same, he kept his ears tuned to the tilt and lilt of Jane's vocality. A puerile, half-smothered portion of him itched to have her smell right under his nose while he chanced a doze. Loki was not one to deny himself his wants, thus he scoffed at this ridiculous notion that he begin now.

She didn't see it coming, intent on reciting.

Indignant and mortified, Jane gasped a mousy squeak when he pulled her into his lap. "What are you doing, Loki?" Wriggling and wiggling did not get her out of his hold. In fact, the more she moved the more Loki's embrace mimicked a tightening boa constrictor. Back flush against his chest now, Jane felt her veins solidify with calcined lime and sand, leaving her stiff and immovable. She had nowhere to go.

"Cold," he pouted.

"Then go sit by a fireplace," she seethed. His replying guttural rumble echoed all around her, his presence augmented and hers diminished by their respective positions. Compared to others Jane was slight, petite. Compared to Loki, diminutive.

"Let go, heathen." He did not and flicked her ear for impertinence. Only Jane's forearms remained relatively free and their movement restricted by the weight of the book. He was in control and any she thought she had was all illusion. Jane refused to concede her defeat.

Loki let her struggle. It obviously meant something to her, resisting him, and it wore her out, which made his job easier. Sure and soon enough, Jane's breath came out in exasperated heaves. "Are you quite finished?" His condescending tone encouraged another few minutes of vain endeavors. At last, she sagged against him. His embrace did not easily allow deep breaths. From behind, Loki enjoyed at her sullen pout. Adorable, his pet.

That's when Loki decided to play with her hair.

His fingers, long and gaunt and those nails that tapered into clawed tips, massaged her scalp in lingering touches. It left tingling sensations that seeped beneath her skin, wheedling into her marrow a false sense of repose. Blinking became a lazy affair. Unbidden, her body leaned more into his embrace, resting against his chest and drinking in its core temperature which was a few degrees cooler than her own.

It felt nice.

Behind her Loki charmed a few more spells as he petted her. She would never relax on her own and this sped up the inevitable. Wispy green smoke emitted from his hand. It dispersed with each nostrilled exhale, his nose close enough to ruffle her hair in time with his breathing. He couldn't resist basking in that scent of hers. Milk and honey underneath lavender, meadows and dog.

Loki liked thinking how she'd smell of Asgard after so long in the castle. She would smell of home. His home.

By then, her hair would be longer. He would like more to play with in these sorts of instances. When she first visited him, it was shorter, perhaps collar bone length and had grown since. Streaks of auburn red blending into deep, dark copper tones and it shined in alternating tones given changes in the light. He had seen plenty of blondes—his brother's taste in women responsible for that—the sable colored hair of various diplomats and dwarves, even the hair of starlight most elves bore, but few brunettes. The time in the cage made him fond of it, when she'd hug his chest and those wild strands would tickle jawline. Back in that city, she crawled all over him. Laid on his back, into his belly, under his chin, between his ears—wherever she could get away with. That Jane did not shy from touching him and Loki couldn't deny his initial distaste for it.

Time, however, has a way of softening most barriers. He was no different. Loki did not like those nights after his escape, when he watched the city burned and took his ire out on more than a handful of souls. Most nights he had not spent alone until he suddenly did. He never considered himself needy for companionship. Never cared or sought it out frequently during his years in the castle. He had no choice in the matter as Jane spent those nights with him despite his violent rebuff of her advances. Then he was gruff; then he was soft; then he accepted. And that was when she left him.

The prince looked down to the female tracing one of the pictures. She was regaling him with another tale, a rhyming concoction of short, simple verses. The words came in one ear, danced a bit between eardrums, and departed, leaving only an emotional afterglow. Soothing and light, as was the tale. She did not realize she was under scrutiny, still slumped against him. Dare he say it she looked peaceful beneath his touch. He wanted to purr at the notion.

Prince Loki of Asgard bit back a scoff. He does not purr for people. He took in a huff of a breath. Milk and honey. The defensiveness mellowed out again. Fine. He would contemplate his songbird's worthiness. If she was nice to him, he would really consider letting her hear him purr. That was a thought to meditate down the line. His fingers resumed dominate control of the book.

Loki became more methodical, going page by page instead of jumping by whim and the verses oscillated from short snippets to epic long poems. Inside he praised this mortal's memory. Not all Asgardians were so well versed. Songs of hunters, satirical balladry on women, fear of death, loss, lands and kings by foreign names—a language musical and enchanting on his songbird's tongue; he hoped she knew works in that dialect, spoke it more fluently—the subject matter richly diverse and ran up and down the emotional spectrum.

The shadows were long when Loki felt the last few pages haunt his fingertips. Snacks and drinks came and went, Loki careful not to strain her voice, less it go raw. Nature calls aside, Loki did not release his pet and Jane grudgingly accepted her lot after a few more escape attempts. She did not like reciting amorous tales to him and Loki found himself mischievously delighted at her discomfort. On occasion he made her repeat them and smiled under her glare.

To Jane's untrained eye, Loki grew more youthful, boyish, as he listened. An absurd thought came to her, that Loki sought out her stories to relive a portion of his childhood. Reliving better times, peaceful times, loving times. Jane viciously rejected that ludicrous notion.

Loki was a monster. Who he was years past was of no concern to her.

As Loki searched on eager for more, originals and repeats, Jane recited another, unbidden:

_ "Good for good is only fair;_  
_ Bad for bad soon brings despair;_  
_ Bad for good is vile and base;_  
_ Good for bad shows gods' good grace."_

Jane met his searching stare. He let her some inches of freedom. They did not touch.

Loki closed the book. Regal posture. Fierce virescent eyes. A predator looking to pounce.

_"Cease then, nor order imperfection name:_  
_Our proper bliss depends on what we blame._  
_Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree_  
_Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee._  
_Submit. —In this, or any other sphere,_  
_Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:_  
_Safe in the hand of one disposing power,_  
_Or in the natal, or the mortal hour._  
_All nature is but art, unknown to thee;_  
_All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;_  
_All discord, harmony, not understood;_  
_All partial evil, universal good:_  
_And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,_  
_One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right."_

His smugness was palatable, tainting the air when he gave a short snort of pride. Unsportsmanlike or not, Jane would trade three fingers to spit at him. This spoiled prince was in for an invidious surprise if he thought Jane literally ignorant. He should have learned his lesson after an entire day of thrashing him in physics and philosophy—though he may contend that opinion—followed by her recitation. So, he wanted to play? Jane squared her shoulders. He better prepare to keep up.

They traded barbs and witticisms in the form of rhythm and rhyme, facetious famous quotes, and straight up insults. Loki did not bother hiding his shark grin; he knew she would be most fun to play with. Thus, he did not like it when his retainers spoiled the mood by dashing through the library doors with even less grace than Bragi. He should have known they would seek him out this evening despite his orders.

He was enjoying a comfortable distance with his pet—he was quick to take back those inches—and was thoroughly annoyed by the ruination of his careful plotting. He had just gotten her to relax again in his hold. That he resorted to dirty tricks and magical enchantments each time and not his normal routes of seduction was a matter to analyze later.

Obstinate oscine.

Loki growled oaths under his breath as he caged her in his embrace. He had a few minutes before they thundered up enough floors to reach him. A sigh threatened; he loved ruffling his finch's feathers yet forces around him stubbornly interrupted at inconvenient intervals. Truly, could he not savor his pet in peace? It didn't help as Jane wriggled in a variety of contortions trying to escape again, thinking she found her moment of chance in his lax muscles. He had been ignoring her commands-requests-shouts to be released for some time now and Jane had given up verbal abuse for pinching her way to freedom.

Loki snickered. That tickled.

She was certainly light enough to carry, and she made delightfully entertaining noises when surprised. All around, her reactions were rather amusing. He set her on one of the divans and poked her nose with a commanding finger. "Stay." Jane slapped his hand away. Yes, he didn't think she'd obey, and he'd rather not have to deal with her while tending to his vassals. Loki considered his options.

He didn't have any rope. Shame. His knots could use some work.

He had magic but even after days of rest, his reserves where not where he preferred them to be.

He had his wits and words. He always did like Plan C.

Loki leaned in, Jane leaning back as far as the furniture would allow. "You will stay here and stay silent," he commanded, threatening. "I will go talk with my retainers and you will not take one step from this lounge or we will work through your disobedience later this evening. Just you and me in a chamber of my choosing, in whatever way of my choosing." Loki let his teeth show.

Nausea churned in her insides. Dear gods, he would torture her. "Do we understand each other, Jane?" Jane nodded fast enough to rattle her teeth and gripped the upholstery like her life depended on it. It probably did.

"Good." Loki stood and strode for the doors. He turned back before descending the flight of stairs. "Do not make me come looking for you." She breathed easier when his silhouette retreated with each downward step.

_Can this be considered progress?_ Not really, not when he's left her alone before and the result so far was getting him angry and her chained in a room. Jane tugged at her hair. It made no sense why she caved in earlier. No, no it did make sense. She was following her advice. Play by his rules and when opportunity presented itself, stab him and run. She just wished he did not need to be so touchy. Why was he so touchy? Are all princes this feely? He seemed like a more aloof noble, now that Jane had time to witness his more humanly moments.

Spoiled. Vain. Arrogant. Regal. Condescending.

The list went on, she had more than enough adjectives to describe him and not one of them flattering. Regal doesn't count, as it's an insult in her book. Jane laid down on the sofa, staring up at the high library ceiling. Voices flowed up from below, the library built to echo sounds, but Jane couldn't make out all the words and stopped listening to get her head straight. She needed a plan. More than a goal, Jane needed a way out. Loki had strength in numbers. He mentioned something about retainers—servants?—so Jane x'ed out trusting anyone. That valet, the soldiers, they all sided with Loki.  
She was on her own.

Jane thought of her dogs and suppressed the lump that tried to build in her throat. Alone. It had been a long, long time since she was truly alone. Sucked as much as she recalled. Jane released a steady breath.

_Cry later._ She had work to do.

Okay, she was in a castle. A huge, high-up-in-the-sky castle. She'd need supplies for her escape. Mountains are cold and she can die in a multitude of ways in the wilderness. One of the pains of being human is how ridiculously easy it is for other creatures and the elements to dispose of you. Her bag was probably ash at this point. Jane swore another revenge on Loki for it. Still. Supplies and an escape route, something damn near foolproof as this shackle acted as a literal tether.

Jane worried her bottom lip. Loki would not remove these without great cause and confidence, and Jane wasn't the best actor and probably the worst liar. How would she get them off? The links jingled at the rotations of her ankle. Whatever it was made of—magic and metal—no average smith could remove.

But what of another magician? Magicians removed spells, theirs and those cast by others all the time. She just needed another magician!

Not to mention some way of paying him.

Jane lay back down. _Dammit_. Being poor, and enslaved, really sucked.

She had nothing to offer anyone. Unless, unless the magician was open to a trade. Work for her freedom doing odd jobs in the shop? She could always leave if he didn't hold up his end of the bargain. However, Jane didn't think time would be on her side; she required expedition in getting these things off should Loki come looking for her. She had to offer something non-time-consuming or be able to pay him.

_Maybe a one time deal—_

She bolted upright, even took a few steps away from the couch as if she could literally leave those thoughts behind. "No. No. No. Not ever. It is not worth it." _Worth the price of freedom?_ What wasn't worth that? No, Jane refused to believe it. There had to be another way. _Trades like that never go well,_ she told herself. Never. Only the insanely desperate make them. She had other options. Jane sunk back down onto the couch.

She had other options; she just had to think of them. Yawning, Jane rubbed the fatigue from her face. Once she saw the routine—where she was allowed, where Loki went and what he did, how the castle functioned—then she could make her move. And besides, what prince ever kept his playthings for long? She would be out of here by year's end.

Or dead. There was a good chance of Loki killing her to spite her. He was definitely that kind of prince.

* * *

On any other day his prince would snark about his cane scuffing up the marble. That is how Kvasir knows his prince is truly happy to be home. The old advisor clasped Loki's upper arm, guided by Loki's scent, and let his touch linger. Spindly fingers cool against his jawline as Kvasir knew Loki's touch to be.

"Cease your maidenly tears, counselor. You know it takes more than that to kill me, not to mention having me stay dead." Kvasir nodded, coughing and harrumphing for a modicum of masculine decorum. Of course this was not the first time a faction had set their sights on the second prince. It would never be the last. But it had been the longest, and the loneliest.

Sköll snorted at his side. "And here we all thought you were an emotionless old goat, Kvasir." Sightless or not, the old man landed a precise blow due to practice. The boy would bear of cane-imprint of a bruise for a day. As the teenager heaved and cursed the advisor, Kvasir resumed his politic mask. "You've not aged well in our master's absence, young Sköll."  
"Oh, fuck off, old goat," Sköll wheezed.

Loki laughed. It was good to be home. "That Bragi is not with you, I assume he is whipping the court into a festive frenzy?"  
"Aye, sir," Kvasir sighed. "That he is."

Loki lounged on one of the library's leather couches. "Well, it will keep him occupied. Mother, too. Now," he steepled his fingers below his chin, "who dared move onto my throne while I was away?"

Skrymir stepped out of the shadows then. "Thor kept the worst of vipers out of public favor, but the puppeteers grew bold in your absence."

Loki said nothing, though his face belied his suspicions. Thor never could handle politics; the younger brother expected Mjolnir-holes in the ashlar come his return. Yet his brother tried. Perhaps it was nostalgia that made him love the oaf so. He waved his retainer on.

"General Suttung moved onto patronizing other courtiers after news of your disappearance broke. He had a new patron by week's end."

"He is a gutless worm drunk on greed and blinded by the short game. Remind me to deal with him before the outbreak of any war. Any other general will do but I don't want an unseasoned soul."

"His aide, however, continued to seek us out and has not stopped."

"Oh?" _Interesting_.

"Yes, he comes to your war counsel and listens in. Writes things down. Afterwards he speaks to the captains and visits the military archives."

"Get me the captain of the guards, his notes. I want everything he's written and all the books he's checked out and the sections he visited while in the archives. The smart ones try not to leave a paper trail, so the books won't have been officially checked out."

Skrymir jerked a nod, making a note of it. He carried on with his report. "The ladies Groa and Amora persist in their charms. They've made significant head way in public opinion and the court albeit not favors from our faction. That is because they've targeted your brother's."

His rage was never hot, not that his vassals had ever seen. Tonight was no different. Loki growled and snapped his fingers. Sköll materialized beside his master, eager bloodlust in his eyes. "Leave a note. I want it done tonight. Hit their sub lieutenants but touch not the head of the snake." Skrymir mumbled the necessary names to the boy. Sköll shifted into his wolfskin and vanished as smoke.

Kvasir frowned. "Blood for blood so soon will make them think you rash. Unfit after your stint in Midgard."

Loki bared his canines at the blind man. "They've been thinking what they wanted for the past twelve moons. If they are so foolish to turn their backs on the king then let the fools hang."

Kvasir kept his frown. "Must we get you a woman to temper that temper of yours? If that 'Midgrdian souvenir' of yours is faulty, Bragi would relish introducing you Asgardian ladies fair."

Loki grew cross, not that his advisor could see and react. Skrymir did. The prince tossed away his ire in the next breath. "Bragi is displeased with me?"

"Bragi knows no such moderation as displeasure," Kvasir dryly intoned. Loki rasped out a chortle.

There was silence.

"Oh come now, Kvasir. You are not the least bit intrigued?"

"No." Stoic as per usual.

"Hmm." Loki reclined. "I suppose I'll just have to show her off at a later date then."

Kvasir sighed and nearly rolled his eyes. Bragi would have an apoplectic fit if he brought her to a future banquet, and Loki would bring her to a future banquet. It was his way. He once brought a goat to a banquet to goad a reaction out of the king, and more importantly Bragi. Hard-pressed to say who was more mortified.

There more names—Asthil, the wizard Rosiophus, and Bous, son of Rinda—but they were pawns, not players. Sköll would see to them and give Loki time to set his own house in order.

King Odin wanted to see him at the feast tomorrow night.

Loki stood. The meeting was over. Kvasir and Skrymir bowed. A flicker of brown hair moved near the banister and Skrymir cocked his head. Curious. Next to him, Prince Loki scowled in a diverting sort of way. "She just never learns."

"Sire?"

Loki gave him a courteous smile. "Do see that Sköll doesn't make as much a mess as last time. I don't wish to be disturbed this evening."

Skrymir inclined in a brief bow. "It shall be done, my prince." They left.

Loki grinned as he looked up at the second floor.

He had an idea.

* * *

Jane yelped. He had not been there a second ago. "Don't _do_ that, Loki. Gods, you're trying to give me a heart attack, aren't you?" No reply. "Loki?" Jane swallowed thickly. He bore that same dead man's mask when he proceeded to drown her. Still, the prince said nothing, moving past her and opening up the large windows, glass slabs nearly as tall as the ceiling. Though the night was dark and tranquil, high altitudes whip up fierce winds. Books and papers scattered everywhere. Then Loki's hands were firmly on her shoulders and his voice in his ear, low, sinful and strangely audible over the howl of wind.

"I did promise you we would work on that disobedient streak of yours."

Jane felt impossibly cold at those words, heart stopped and blood frozen in her veins. That wide palm of his was fresh against her back and propelled her to the open windows. She once saw a mouse's head get smashed in by street urchins. It was not one of the more peaceful ways to die.

Neither her voice nor excuses slowed her progress and when she tried planting her feet, Loki require little strength to lift her. No longer was her heart quiet; the blood roared in her ears over everything else. A black abyss stared up and her, the wind leeching onto her being and pulling her out the window. Jane instinctively grabbed onto Loki in a vice grip and pressed into him—anything to get away from the open window.

She didn't want to die.

She begged him, repeating his name as a prayer.

He did not pull them away from the window. Green to terrified brown he caught her chin and forced her attention on him.  
"Do not let go," he said. And began to shift.

Jane didn't listen and a half-beast, half-man, caught her collar with a distorted hand. Fur, claws, rough pads beading into formation over his fingertips. His body grew out of proportion at an uneven pace, parts of him already dog-like, others a semblance of man and even more somewhere in between. Still, he did not let go and Jane stared transfixed as his canines grew to fangs, drool pooling and eyes warped on some high. Still, she tried to get away. His digits were now too big to hold her by the collar; now they found the chain and dragged her back into the beast's lair. Towards the open window.

His breath fogged as in this form he radiated more heat. Loki's head dipped down so that his larger eye loomed omniscient.  
"Do not let go," he repeated. There was nothing but fur to hold onto, his forefeet baring her escape as he moved ever closer to the window.

She could risk it. Run and jump out the window, grasping for a ledge in the cliff to hold onto. Or just jump to her death. He was trying to kill her anyway. The only reason Jane hadn't soiled herself was out of sheer luck and timing. Regardless, Jane could only tremble. Fear instead of oxygen filled her lungs. When that black night and bottomless drop greeted her again, she latched onto the fur on Loki's sternum.

Jane was four seconds from hyperventilation.

Loki was couchant now, head tilted so that he may observe his pet. Jane curled into the crook of his neck and refused to move or look in the direction of the window. Perhaps she did learn her lesson.

That was when she leapt away from him and out the window. Loki's heart stopped.

"Jane!" he roared after her, catching her chain in his teeth just as more than half his body dangled out the window. His hind legs scrambled for purchase. Had his mouth not been occupied, he would curse his songbird for her stupidity. What in Helheim damned souls possessed her jump out a window in a castle?

A toss of his head sent the mortal high up in the air. Enough time for him to rearrange limbs and paws so that he caught Jane on her descent and he wasted no time to throw her in the nearest chair and securely lock the windows closed. The shift to his human form took seconds.

"Are you mad, mortal?" he hollered. Jane was an unhealthy shade of white and breathing erratically in deep, unsteady gulps. She felt her limbs and body, confused if she was alive or in hell. Funny how similar the two looked.

"I'm alive?"

"Of course you are, you demented dame! Why did you—" Loki's heart pumped adrenaline and fear. He nearly lost her. Part of it his own doing.

"You're the one who opened a fucking window in a castle—in the mountains—and then pushed me towards it! How is this my fault?"

"Because you jumped!"

"Did you really expect me to stay with you?"

He did. She should have never let go. She should have come to him and stayed. She should have apologized and disavowed her ways. The closest he got to his desires was Jane begging to live. It did not sound so sweet as he imagined.  
Loki withdrew in on himself. He needed to think. Clarity. This, none of this was going as planned. Jane did not follow him. A biter hollow laughter welled up inside him and he bottled it. Jane had not followed him since the city burned.

He followed her.

The shapeshifter ran a hand through his mane, creating even wilder curls. None of this was right. None of this made sense.  
"Remain here for the night." There was no authority or threat in his words. In fact, he sounded unsure. Off-kilter. Loki did not stay to see her reaction, briskly exiting the library and heading for solitude. He had much thinking to do and wanted no company, least of all his pet.

Hours later sleep infected most of the castle's inhabitants. Jane tried the door.

It opened.

.

.

.


	5. Chapter 5

**General editing. Nothing major.**

**Hawkz**

* * *

_A Kindness: Chapter 5 _

Calmness was disquieting to experience so close to her brush with Death. Not that jumping to her demise was her end goal. There had been a swift, obscure, implausible formation of a contrivance involving hoping from one window ledge to the other and shadow crawling over the rocks. Nevertheless, Jane expected a more emotional, certainly a different psychological, response to her near one-way trip to Helheim. The stories never described the aftermath of staring down Death as anything save glorious, noble, brave.

But emotion_less_? Tritely flippant, even?

Once, just once, Jane saw the tired, haunted eyes of a veteran. Her heart gave an empathetic beat. Perhaps she could relate just a little more to the demons that plagued that stranger.

Jane turned another corner and swore at the familiar chipped sconce. Loki might have her head should he catch her ignoring his orders yet again. Decapitation sounded like a habit of his as much as he liked to dangle her out of windows.

Dead either way.

"All roads lead to Valhalla," Jane muttered as she slinked through the hallways. This was extraordinary luck, Loki not locking the door behind him. Her last effort of escape was only possible thanks to the presumptions of a valet. Jane imagined servants wouldn't leave open any more doors for her. Certainly not once Loki makes his intentions known to the castle staff—another reason to escape more immediately than not.

The clink-clank of armor alerted her and Jane ducked behind a pillar. Jane pulled the dark hood over her hair and left a bare slit of space for her eyes, relying on the dark dye to obscure her form. Someone left it behind in the library, perhaps one of Loki's visitors, though it did not swamp her as much as men's clothing typically did. _A woman's cloak then?_ Slim and of reasonable height, yet perfumed with an unmistakable scent. Jane worked with hounds—hunting hounds—how could she not recognize that scent?

Marching boots in tempo drew closer. Years of iconoclasm came to haunt her, as Jane would appreciate the comfort of a prayer then. White, bloodless knuckles clutched the the cloth at her chest as she tried to focus on breathing quietly. No part of her moved for an extra minute, Jane becoming statuesque in her apprehension.

The patrol walked on.

Jane exhaled a little bit of her fear. _So far, so good._

Being in a foreign castle Jane couldn't expect a swift transition from library tower to liberation; however, every nobleman had stables, horses, kitchens. Often times these two were conveniently close. As the castle was so high in the mountains, the horses must be kept low to the road for facile access in case of a siege. That at least was in her favor. So long as Jane moved downwards and followed the scent of hay, her chances were decent.

Jane's hand shook as she steadied herself adjacent an ashlar wall. Perhaps not as unaffected by her recent dance with death as she liked to think.

Living with Loki was bad for her health. All day he swung between spoiled and rottenly sadistic. Nothing pleased him as much as her discomfort yet he panicked when she jumped out of a window. What did he expect when he tormented her so? Loyalty and any shade of affection were off the table yet he behaved genuinely stricken at the thought of losing her. Jane growled. He was preposterously possessive of his 'toys'.

Lack of light hampered navigation and the aid of night does not last infinitely. Worse still, fatigue and sleep demanded their dues. She had worn herself out appeasing Loki's churlish wants and felt the corporeal restrictions that came with being mortal. Jane slumped against a wall—so many walls, so many stairs—and curled up to generate a bit of warmth. Spring in the mountains was notoriously cool.

Suddenly there was warmth and a hand on top of her hood; Jane jumped, one frozen throat shy of a scream. Through watery, blood-shot eyes she saw him.

An enormity of a being, thick with muscle, messily braided gold hair, and a rugged, commanding presence. Most startlingly, his eyes were kind. The unguarded part of Jane exhaled her tension and leaned into his touch.

Warmth and kindness. Funny how one did not exist without the other.

To Jane's recollection, Loki had only been cool to the touch.

"What has banished you to such a lonely corner young one?" The man's voice lulled like a purr, soothing and gentle. "Would you like to sleep in my chambers?"

Good feeling gone now.

Thor never saw a mortal move so fast. Empty air greeted him and the woman small enough to be a girl glared at him like a wet cat. "I'm not going anywhere with you," she spat. "Be gone crinose cretin!" His blue eyes held surprise, the feeling arresting any movement for a pause. The man laughed then, rich and boisterous, as he rubbed his beard in a quasi-contrite manner.

Whoever she was she certainly had a fiery spirit. Few dared cross a prince of the realm. Thor was intrigued to see her face but she was a swift-footed, lithe thing. She—most definitely a she from the timbre of her voice—darted away and free when he made to move her hood.

Thor rushed to placate her, raising his arms in show of surrender. "Wait, wait! I mean you no harm, truly. Let me help you."  
Jane did not look convinced.

Prince Thor rubbed the back of his neck. _Mistrustful little beastie,_ he grinned. Only narrowed brown eyes and wisps of chestnut colored hair were unconcealed by the clock. Although Thor could not discern her entire face, the glower hinted at a frown. From behind the crook in her elbow, she muttered something about horses and hay. Thor cocked his head.

"You refer to the stables?" He liked the way her eyes brightened. His directions were simple and precise, referring to noticeable artworks and visual counters over the area's official title in case she got lost. Jane leapt to her feet, ready to go. Then the social pull that required expressed gratitude jerked her rearward a step. She was like a child forced to ingest bitter medicine and dawdled to delay the inevitable. Jane hurriedly said her dues and dashed in the direction the stranger provided.

Thor watched her go.

It was late and tomorrow was a feast in his younger brother's honor. The prince gave a rueful smile; any other night he would give chase. What ill luck.

Her gait mellowed the stronger the smell of hay became until Jane dragged her feet more than picked them up. Collapsing in a heap of hay never felt so satisfying. Wheat-beaten gold color, tickling scratchy on her back, and redolent of the rustic outdoors—this was the stuff of happy memories. Her hounds would dog-pile on each other and some nights Jane played favorites, especially with newborns. Her mentor was of a different mindset—dogs were livestock to be bred and raised with a purpose. Still, he offered no protest to his charge's emotional attachment to the pack. Not until he took a switch to her back—not unusual that—and walked away with a scar of teeth imprints on his right calf and missing a strip of flesh on his dominant hand as soon as little Jane cried out.

Gazeir was in his prime then: Wiry, of coiled muscle ready to spring, and mean. He bared his fangs at everyone, Master—_former_, Jane scolded herself—included. The pack did not respect him. They feared to hate him yet hate they did. Gazeir wasn't capable of love; he adhered to an alternative set of rules. Protecting the pack was at the heart of that. Gazeir fought, bit, clawed, and marred those foolish, angry enough to challenge his role as beta. Gazeir was not kind. He was not fair. The hand that fed him today expected a snap tomorrow. He was gentle to no one.  
Except the newborns.

They tumbled over his back, gnawed on his ears and tail, barfed on his paws and the beta tolerated it. That was the only sensible conclusion for raising his teeth against the then hound master. Little Jane was a pup in his eyes and no one laid a violent hand on the pups under his watch.

Five years later the former master of Jane's put a bullet in his skull and ordered his descendants drowned. Jane saved one.  
She named him Kazi.

Jane fisted the hay. She must escape before wintertide, before the first fall of snow. The newborn pups may not survive otherwise. So long as she could make the stables part of her routine, get the soldiers used to her presence, the stable boys less suspicious, the scullions less interested in gossiping about her. Those still awake watched, on guard against the stranger in their domain. New servants and slaves all went through this. Loki's collar damned her to a longer period than usual should any person notice.

The guard shifted in his chair, scowling at his empty bottle and left for the kitchens to replenish his stash. Jane sighed, snuggling deeper into the hay. It would be foolhardy to try and flee in her current predicament. Another patrol guarded the road, checking for proper identification or clearance, and exhaustion had yet to be replaced with any sense of vigor. Loki's presence kept her high-strung throughout the days in his keep and Jane fought sleep as much as courted it. The castle, the mountains, this place was intrusive, foreign and unwelcoming to her. Relaxing within this castle was akin to acceptance and that inner, rebellious portion of her soul shrieked at the thought. Passion versus reason. That never-ending battle for dominance in a person's mind skirmished in hers.

A bucket of slops clanked and the pigs snorted unhappily awake. They squealed at the intruder and the soldier rushed back in, spear in an offensive grip. Jane only saw a shadow and a deep pair of amber eyes but the man's shoulders rolled back, releasing their tension. Contempt replaced his dubiety.

"You." He spat a glob of phlegm in front of the shadow. It growled. The soldier left, talking his chair—his post—outside. Jane watched the affair with tired, curious eyes. The shadow moved into the candlelight to give his form shape and clarity.  
Wolfish. Very wolfish but skeletal skinny like a coyote. The more Jane stared, the more she thought him a jackal it was so thin. Jane knew a few countries trained and domesticated wolves. There had been a few in the city or so she heard. Her dogs had been domesticated for generations despite some appearances or temperaments. His form was ravenous and self-consuming. Sclerotic where he should be fleecy, mangy where he could be beautiful—whomever owned him did not cherish him. Her shifting drew his notice.

Hateful. He and Gazeir had the same eyes.

Crusts of dried blood clumped his fur though the wolf paid it no mind. He cared more for the bucket of water at Jane's feet.  
"Thirsty?"

Nothing.

Jane extended a foot so that the bucket was closer to him than her. He watched her as he drank, causing Jane to pull the cloak closer to her body in an ineffectual grab at generating heat. He titled his head at that. Living with hounds, Jane developed particular quirks. Thus, stranger or not, Jane fell into conversation with this one.

"Not mine. Found it at the library. I guess someone left it behind… I'm not guilty of stealing as I intended to return it! Okay, I did steal it. It's cold in the castle. Do you ever get cold?"

The wolf drew a little closer in slow, curious steps.

"Keep staring at my face like that and I'll think you find me beautiful." He drew back, sneezing more than snorting and giving his head a once shake. Jane laughed. TI felt good to smile. "No? A she-wolf girlfriend then? Oh, I get it. You have one of those mistresses you keep in your back pocket com mating season, don't you? You sly handsome devil."

That earned her a wide wolf grin with a lolling tongue. It too had blood. Jane ignored that and nodded. "Yeah, I thought so. Bet you break a lot of hearts."

Silence. The wolf yawned and made to go. The guard came back in, bringing wind and cool night air with him, which gave Jane gooseflesh. She burrowed deeper into the hay. The soldier didn't spare a glance on his way to the kitchens and the door hadn't quite slammed when a thin, long snout sniffed its way under the hood and into her hair. Jane grumbled something garbled but didn't lift her head. She was so tired.

The wolf drew back with wide eyes. He licked his chops and sniffed for a telltale sign. There was none.

He retreated to a dark, empty stall and shifted. Young Sköll emerged. He nicked a set of stable boy's garments—unwashed, sweat-stained and dirty from more than just dirt—and filled two buckets worth of water. The perfume of blood remained though the obvious swaths washed away in rivulets of diluted pink. Sköll did not bother drying off. The girl did not stir at his return, even going so far as turning his back on him.

_That's new._ Then again she was an ignorant mortal.

"You can have the top bunk, but no gnawing on my flesh or bones."

"Not the usual proposition I hear." Her reaction was comical.

"Er, I thought you were someone else, the wolf. I mean, you smell just like him." Sköll quirked a scar-split eyebrow. Isn't she a mortal? Their senses were dull compared to his kind's, so he failed to understand her reference.

"Is he yours?"

"What?"

"The wolf. Is he yours?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Take better care of him." The rebuke caught him off-guard. The statement was less a phrase of advice than a disdainful threat. While the pubescent was accustomed to the tone, the circumstances were unusual. He brushed off her glare.  
"He's fine."

Jane grabbed his sleeve. "No, he's not. People don't treat him nicely here. You're supposed to take care of him. Don't you care?"

"No," he snarled. "I don't." Sköll jerked his sleeve from her hold and left. He would find other sleeping arrangements for tonight. One of the stable boys caught his gaze and scrambled for distance. He bared his teeth at the youth's retreating figure.

If he wasn't under orders…

_How would his master even know?_

Hateful amber eyes weighed his options as he looked back to the defenseless mortal. His canines shifted, mouth yawning open. Sköll snapped it shut.

Loki would know. He always did.

Fine, but he could take back his coat. He threw off his stolen garments and shifted fully; he did not want to engage the mortal in any way. His paws click-clacked on the wooden floor and Jane looked up this time.

She smiled at him.

Sköll drew back a step, unsure.

"Here." He wanted to laugh. She was handing him his coat. The collar was fully visible now. His nose did not lie. Sköll stared at it and Jane's smile waned. She laid down the coat at his feet. "If you want."

One of the stable boys took that moment to cry in his sleep, a high-pitched whine and series of whimpers. It was one of the younger ones, the ones not used to sleeping alone and being alone yet. The pup awoke with a start and tumbled from the stall. Sköll's reputation preceded him it seemed as the puppy flinched at seeing him. The little one huddled low and submissive before him, too scared to even backtrack.

Sköll licked his chops.

He hadn't played with a puppy in ages.

Feminine hands scooped up the boy. He fought her hold. Jane held him to her breast and murmured soothing nothings. The puppy squirmed and squirmed but when he laid his head on her chest, there was the steady rhythm of a heartbeat. Cozy as a fire place mat when Jane laid him between her body heat and the hay. The puppy yawned as he listened to that foreign voice. She made him forget about the demon two paces away. He drifted back to sleep.

Sköll watched with a twisted lip.

He left the stables and his coat behind.

* * *

Early morning Jane spent in the stables, woken by the hustle and bustle of the early shift. A panel of sous chefs shouted orders for their charges to fully wake up, waving a number of threatening knives and cleavers at scullions who pilfered before the dish finished cooking—afterwards all bets were off apparently. Soldiers stumbled to the communal table for coffee, bread, butter, and oatmeal. Burnt coffee filled most mugs and honey-saturated fruit colored most oatmeal bowls. They laughed, groused, yawned, and greeted acquaintances, fellow soldiers, and servants alike. Someone shouted louder though no less comprehensively at the stalls and a rush of canines and boys emerged, the canines shifting as they ran, walked and stumbled until a horde of boys bum-rushed the table. Jane stared dumbfounded.

_Shapeshifters? All of them?_

Under the threat of greedy hands, the breadbaskets rapidly depleted and the soldiers clamored angrily for more, kicking some boys aside. The hierarchy was clear here. Some boys flinched back while braver souls darted under the table so as to not share their spoils. Jane expected to see gangs and cliques form but the boys drifted leader and group-less, minus the few parties of twos and threes. Similarities spoke of sibling or familiar bonds. Not even the older boys took charge. Jane frowned at the unorthodoxy of it all. More bread came, pacifying some of the more choleric soldiers. The puppy slept on beside her, digging deeper into her side for more warmth and less noise. Her hand absent-mindedly petted him, ears to tail in long strokes.

That food smelled good. Yesterday's mid-day repast was the last meal Jane had. The puppy—_boy?_—should not go hungry at least. Jane shook him gently awake. He blinked, stumbled out of the hay, shifting in awkward stages, and staggered bare as his name day to the table. The soldiers were not kind to anyone outside their brotherhood that much was obvious. He came back to her, his belly not the better for it.

Jane stood and walked over to the table, littering hay in her wake. The boy trailed meekly in her shadow. None paid her attention until she began to pilfer much of the provisions.

"Girl! What do you think you're doing?"

Jane took a little more jam and an extra knife. "Feeding them."

He got up, intent clear in his eyes but Jane's left hand was quick. His tunic's sleeve was bolted to the table with a sizable knife, capitulating him ungainly forward. His tablemates laughed at his predicament.

"She got you good, scout."

"That's right, lass! Put that disrespectful pup in his place."

"You gonna take that, man? That girl just showed you up!" The young scout was beet red and having difficulty pulling the knife loose and not tearing his tunic in the process. The stable boys all stared.

"Well?" Jane raised an expectant brow at those staring at her. "Wash your hands and eat while it's hot." The food went down messily, no thanks given.

Jane took a loaf smeared with raspberry jam. Stuck in a foreign land where people spoke in unknown dialects and jarring accents, Jane felt at home here. More at home anyway. The chaos, the smells—Jane breathed deep—this might be as close as she gets to her old home. It dredged up good and bad emotions Jane didn't want to sort through. She did not join anyone at the table and no one pestered her for work thus far. Jane stretched and drifted in a haze near unconsciousness.

A swarthy, stout figure cracked an order and the boys scattered, no longer eating or playing jacks. The stable master. He looked confused at the crumbs of bread and crocks of honey and jam on the floor but ignored them to bellow orders and cuff ears. Jane returned the cutlery to the kitchen. Lingering, inquisitive looks trailed her movements that first day, some of the younger boys shadowing her when the stable master was not watching too closely. Jane did not move much beyond her stall that first day, thinking.

Maybe she could work here.

She did.

Dinner that night was a similar affair—Jane picking up food for the boys and skirting the soldiers' complaints, though this time the boys had to clean up their own mess. Few followed her request. The bodies that slept with her grew fivefold, most woefully young and alone and embracing any comfort they could find. Another day passed—Loki did not come for her and Jane did not leave the stables. How, why, Jane cared not. She jumped to ingrain herself in the stables. This was her chance.

There was no hound master, which made more sense when her eyes caught sight of a youthful shapeshifter barking ineffectually at a pair of sheep. Livestock they had aplenty; pigs, goats, oxen, cows, horses, and rabbits though Jane didn't understand how they supported this a flock in the confined space of a stable. Asgard Castle was enormous, the stables equally so, but close quarters breed disease; how was this place meticulously bare of infection?

Feasts meant extra work for the kitchens and stables so aside from a general perusal, the fellow in charge grunted his unwelcoming adoption into the work force and told her to keep herself busy. Jane inclined in a short bow, careful to keep the cloak close to her neck. Females rarely worked livestock where she grew up—most women went to work as cooks or maids; they put her with the stable boys. The boys, who cursed in a woefully mundane manner, flaunted etiquette and hygiene, skirted duties and the stable master every lunar-lit night and snickered over childish pranks, performed their duties abysmally.

Jane disregarded the searching, unfriendly eyes of boys perhaps half her age, many not even a third. She had work to do and escape plans to plot. Shape-shifters did not garner her sympathy—the puppy, the one nuzzled deeper into her belly and crooning content as Jane reflexively scratched at his ears, notwithstanding. The work was simple and her limbs flexed in an involuntary manner, arching at the right angles to pitch a forkful, twist the rope in a taut knot yet not to tight to untangle, and so forth. The boys dawdled and suffered from inefficient, unskilled work. Upturned, rusty nails pierced careless palms and blood-bursting blisters stained much of their tools. Few heeded her advice with anything other than sullen glares and flat looks. Jane shrugged and moved on. Now was not the time for attachments. She finished early and left to explore other sections of the stables. Where the livestock was kept—horses—tack, food, medicine, leather works, doors, windows, and loose floorboards. Anything to get her through the gate, down the mountain and back home. Family awaited her return.

The puppy leaned heavily against her ankles, pawing to be picked up again.

Jane walked on, two four-legged shadows trailing after her, one with a pair of bright amber eyes and in the shadows.  
Closer to the exit, yet no closer to freedom. Guards patrolled just outside the stables and a post kept watch at a gate along the road that led up to the castle. Regulars, fellow soldiers, and those with papers were the only ones to pass, coming or going. Hard, circumspect eyes followed her, a stranger, when she wandered too close. Jane turned back to the stables, clutching at the cloak for security. Acumen combined with luck would see that no one saw the collar decorating her throat. That and a scarf. She needed to find a scarf.

The mortal came back to her stables, catching boys treating her stall in a most unhygienic fashion. They jumped, then turned belligerent at being caught. Jane clicked her tongue, cracked a few knuckles and walked over to them.  
Hound Master Jane was not to be given disrespect.

At first sight of it, one soldier forgot he was still drinking and drowned his neck and shirtfront in ale. Another vowed Jane a witch. Three weeks to the day, the boys snapped to attention at her call. None could fathom how.

Sköll, under orders, on watch, in the shadows, worked his jaw. He knew why. Jane caught him lurking and bore her alpha look. She still had to wear bandages on her right hand but what would fade for her would never grow back for him. His tongue worked the gap where one of his incisors used to be. He followed them at a distance, the girl between him and the young shapeshifters. Jane and the boys were out acting as shepherds in the valley behind the mountains. This is where the livestock grazed and Jane worked her 'magic'. Today the goats and sheep were out. Some of the older ones lurked along the perimeter, alert for predators and interlopers. The mortal whittled at a long thin reed with a short bladed kitchen knife. She tested a few blows and it rang crisp and distinct through his ears. All manner of dog ears cocked in her direction.

Staccato, long, fast, short, high- and low-pitched, Jane had a command corresponding to each variation. The boys followed with an eagerness to please. Sköll scoffed at it all. Just because she gave them the outline of pack unity, leaders, followers, cohesion, and other flimflam, they obeyed her. All the boys under her tutelage were just that—boys. None older than their fiftieth name day. The older ones left for apprenticeships as craftsmen or begged for acceptance into military ranks. Some even became farmers. No boy wanted to stay stuck in the stables under Stable Master Doring's whip if he could help it.

The whistle grew shrill. _Mountain lion._ The dogs drew in, younger ones looping the herd into a tight knit and the older ones a defensive line in front. Sköll watched the woman-girl. She shed her scarf and cloak. If he had to give credit as credit's due, Sköll admitting he liked seeing her in battle.

His tongue worked that toothless socket.

The boys formed a half circle between the lion and its prey but none fled or attacked on their own. Not like they used to. There was something jäger-like in these moments, a fighter worth fighting hidden in those depths of that woman. She was not strong or admirably fast—she was mortal, after all—but the way she led a pack spoke of something more than just an alpha. Her knife nicked the lion's muzzle during a charging head butt for the left flank sent it off-balance and another jaw gripped its paw to save the girl from an ugly marring. Yowls and growls vied for audible dominance. It was a dance of patience and timed strikes. The cougar slunk off, seeking a less troublesome prey.

_Victory._

Some of the more proud herders howled a victory dance and at least three bowled over the mortal in happy kisses and nuzzles.

Unity. Leaders. Followers. Flimflam.

Sköll sneered.

Neophytic fools, all of them. They were a pack of hyenas, all males subordinate to the female however low she may be. That woman could not protect them. Not really.

While some skin-changers kept watch, Jane took the senior ones deeper into the meadows. More 'magic.' Hunting for rabbits, herbal medicines, how to find cardinal directions, how to communicate over distances, focus studies, mental exercise, sometimes singing or regaling the pack with stories on lazier afternoons.

The skilled ones received a special braid woven into the side of their hair. A mark of superiority, strength, speed, or smarts.

They strutted.

Proud.

Competed against the other.

Perilous ambition.

They fell out of favor.

Lost their braid and space as confident.

Forced to build their way back up with worn tools and chastened slouches. Hierarchy challenging anarchy.

It was a messy, time-consuming process. Sköll watched them fumble their way into forming a faction, unimpressed. It also led to overcrowding Jane's one sleeping stable.

And yet, her challenges of Asgardian normativity brought change. Not everyone liked change. Stable master Dorring grouched at her encroachment of his authority. He cuffed more than a few ears when they second-guessed his orders via searching eyes, looking for a discreet gesture from the newcomer. Scout Hasson grabbed his wrist before the man scarred Jane's eye blind with the switch.

None of the boys came to her defense, scattering soon as Doring walked in with the switch. Not everything is so easily changed.

"Hound Master Jane." Most of guards who frequented the stables liked her. She knew the bawdy tavern songs and warrior epics of old and so long as they did not bully her pack of followers, they got a song most nights. Veterans and the old hands respected the order she brought; younger folks liked her kind hands.

_Sentimental stooges,_ Sköll derided from his lonely shadows. At least come night he was allowed more pleasing activities since his master's return. A backlog of work meant a deluge of pleasure for him. What fun.

Sköll stretched and rolled in the grass; they were out taking the herds to graze again. Today was a lazier afternoon of games and tummy rubs and ridiculous, rhyming limericks. One of the pups chased down a ball and didn't have the dexterity to stop. He hit Sköll in the gut, the elder wolf jumping to his legs and snarling. He didn't quite have the boy's scruff in his mouth when the whistle shrilled to life.

"Sköll!"

He hissed. She never should have learned his name. His fangs retracted. The young shapeshifter ran for the feel of familiar ankles.

_Hiding behind a woman's skirts. Impotent shifter,_ he growled. He did not flinch from her approaching figure. He need not fear her. Jane picked up the ball. The wolf held her gaze. He could break her. Rip out that soft throat. A gush of blood and she'd be no more.

"Try it," she goaded. Jane was good at reading animal language, their bodily shifts and ocular expressions. Despite their skin-changing ways, not many Asgardians lay claim to such skill.

The wolf grinned, all teeth. He liked that. A challenge. A confrontation. That brazen, bold lass. As soon as his master lost interest, that pretty throat was his. He would go after a few newborns first though. She was a spitfire when her 'pack' was threatened and her reactions enticing when angry albeit never a true threat.  
Jane tossed her reply over her shoulder. "I'm not the one missing a tooth, Sköll." He stopped laughing and resumed sulking at that.

_Lucky shot._

They returned to the stables at dusk, wary of the crepuscular hunters that called these mountains home. Jane was not a formidable fighter, not against the larger carnivores that stalked the nights. That too Jane learned the hard way and, though Sköll would never know, that too was the reason he lost only a tooth in their scuffle and not his head.

Sanguinary Sköll saw their safe return to the stables as his orders dictated and left them thereafter. Whatever happened now was in Doring's hands. Sköll had other prey to hunt this night.

The scout she humiliated scowled at her arrival. Inadvertently, Jane made a few adversaries during her stay in the stables. Jane did not acknowledge his presence as she herded the boys to the communal table and he soon reciprocated the gesture. Zobink, one of the older shifters and more rash than reasonable in nature, bared his fangs at the soldier's back. His long braid jingled with small metal trinkets. Halfway through dinner Doring strutted in. The boys and Jane stood to attention, Jane lingering a little further back. The stable master sat down and ate, not yet giving the at ease command.

"Hound master," he commanded, her title a sneer on his tongue. "You left the goat stables unmucked." Tension poured into the veins of his underlings and some of the boys shared glances.

No she hadn't because Jane did not muck out the stables; they did. To ensure fair, equal labor, Jane divided the work based on health and age. While they initially groused, few could deny the efficiency of her leadership. They finished work more quickly, eager to play and hunt and herd under Jane's watch.

Little Franz shuffled forth. "I cleaned the stables today, sir. If they're not clean then it's my—"

"Silence!" His fist thumped the table. Other talk ceased. "You wanted a leader, I gave you one. The fault of the follower is the fault of the leader. Hound Master." He greased her title in contempt. "Your acolytes here dismissed their duties. Skirting of chores is a punishable offense, as you know."

Scout Hasson grit his teeth and got to his feet. His captain forced him to sit back down. They may like Jane but the stable was Doring's domain, it was his right to enforce his rule. The spectators watched in guilty silence.

Franz peeked behind his brother. "But it's my fault if—" Doring got to his feet. Some of the young skin-changers shifted minutely in front of Jane. Another spoke in a queasy, mousy voice. "Sir, Stable Master sir, it is our fault, not the Hound Master's. We'll take the blame."

Doring's dark eyes glinted with malice. "There is only one master in the stables. Move boys." They didn't. So Jane did.

"It's fine," she demurred. She walked up to Doring and found his gaze. "Ten lashes, yes?"

"Fifteen."

Bile built in her throat but she forced it down. Jane licked her lips uneasily and bowed her head. She'd most likely be bed-ridden the next day. "Can they finish their supper?" Doring grunted, waving his hand. They sat, eating slowly. His hand is hot and sweaty on her bicep.

"Not you, Hound Master," he whispered. Their audience watched them go. Zobink bared his fangs, some of his comrades mimicking the expression. Hands fisted in each others' shoulders to keep each other from going over there. That only makes it worse.

Doring counts aloud when he administers punishment, drawing out the numbers in a mixture of relish and anticipation. He gets her to scream from eleven onwards. The boys look away in shame; he had punished Jane before though none of them remembered feeling this guilty, this sick over the fact.

Jane was right; she could not get up the next morning.

Zobink, Einn, Rekkja, and Samna got to work. Rekkja snuck a sleeping drought in Jane's tea, just as she taught him. Despite noticing three gulps in, it was potent enough to knock her out before she's a full minute in her verbal scolding. Rekkja slowly lowered her belly-side down on the hay. He nodded to Zobink. The others would do chores today; they would not be joining them. Something else required their attention today.

Guradsman Thjolkur watched the militaristic organization of the stable boys in wonder. He whistled. "Wonder what has them in a tizzy?" His partner stroked his grey-streaked beard, respect in his smile.

"They're going to war." He held a finger to his lips at Thjolkur's inquisitive look. "You'll see lad. Oh, you'll see."

Unlike Loki, Sköll could not hide his expressions from the public. The guard of three pint-sized pups rapidly shifted and growled at him to leave. Jane waved them away. Forcing her way to her feet, Jane crouched in front of him, hissing as she did so. So fixated on the blood pooling under her bandages he did not shy from her hands like usual. Her hands—soft hands—traced the newly formed cut outlining the base of his ear.

"You've gotten sloppy, Sköll." He looked pointedly at her back. She only grinned at him. "We both knew this was coming." A little one jogged in, chiding and sounding more mother-hen like than playful pup, as she leaned back into the hay. Jane chuckled under the boy's words, playfully contrite and allowed him to undo her bandages and reapply pilfered medicine.  
Sköll watched impassively as Doring ignored Jane's injuries to demand more work of her through the next two weeks, each day the tasks bursting open her wounds. What did catch the wolf's attention was the palpable, roiling anger from his audience. His hind leg scratched his jawline. It was as he thought; Jane couldn't protect them, not really. They wasted energy in anger; Doring was not going anywhere. Jane the mortal did not flinch under Doring's hand, not while her pack watched. Obedient and bowed head, she followed his orders with no gripe or glare.

He respected her a little more for that.

A few days later he dropped a tin of ointment in front of Zobink. Distrustfully, the dog shifter doesn't touch it, so Sköll kicked it at him. The boy opened it then and sniffed. His eyebrows jumped up. Disbelief and more distrust war over his face. He decided to accept the gift and nodded at Sköll. The wolf doesn't deem him with a reply but watched as he handed it to whomever is in charge of taking care of their leader and the ointment applied. Jane is careful to wear her scarf tight around her neck as the medicine to her back is applied.

Two days later Jane's scars are faded to tender pink, open wounds healed.

The youngest, most foolish of the lot think him friendly because of that and he snarled at them to leave him be when Jane leaves for grazing again. A low reedy whistle hums and Sköll catches her eye. Reluctantly the wolf sat down again and the puppies come back. One rolls a ball at his paws.

_No._

He didn't do it for Jane. He was under orders. If she went back any less healthy it would take a toll on his own well-being. Self-preservation, that was his motivation. Thus it startled him when Jane rubbed his ears, just once when he's not looking, upon their return. She made no move to touch him again or acknowledge his presence. Sköll jutted out his bottom canines.  
Foolish woman. He didn't do it for her.

Sköll rolled with laughter when Stable master Doring is bedridden with the worst case of food poisoning and muscle paralysis the kitchen staff has seen in nearly a decade. The man can't lift a mug let alone a switch. Sköll decided to respect that too and snaps less at the younger, more foolish ones of the pack.

Time passes.

New moons and full moons were a raucous affair in the stables. Music making, love making, carnal congress with no intentions of love, carousing and generally just loudness went on through the night. Jane's tongue knew more than her fair share of stories and lyrics, much to the enjoyment of her audience. A contest of insults between her boys and the younger soldiers escalated in creativity, the soldiers getting sloppier the drunker they became, the boys better from the encouragement and sweet cider Jane provided. The captain of the guard voted in favor of the stable hands to the collective groan of his underlings. The guards dug into their pockets and rewarded their adversaries with a noble couple copper pieces each. _Backbitten bandits the lot of them_, Jane rolled her eyes as the boys swaggered, full of pride and cider.

Doring nursed his wounded pride and sour mead in the corner. He watched the intruder laugh and dance with some of the younger boys, and goading the older ones into courting a few scullery maids into a dance or two. He continued to drink and think dark thoughts. His strength returned incrementally, dragging shame and rage behind it like coattails.

Traust tugged on Jane's cloak. He was green and staggering. Jane knew that look. By the skin of his teeth, Jane got him to a quieter, more secluded part of the stables and had his head in a bucket when he retched.

"Traust," she whispered, scolding in a resigned, sighing sort of manner, "You tried the wine didn't you?" Her charge whined and retched again. Of course he did. Traust was always trying to do things he shouldn't. Zobink and Huggan trailed in, the two rarely far from Jane outside of necessity. She sent them for water and rags. "Traust, stay here. I'm going to get the herbs from my stable, okay?"

He moaned.

Jane shook her head and went for the herbs. They were in corked jars courtesy of the kitchen staff, primarily the Head cook. "You got them to bath; take whatever you need, Hound Master." Jane chuckled at the memory as she sorted her collection for lavender, chamomile and a bit of feverfew.

_He'd probably retch up the first few gulps. Best get extra._

A hot, sweaty hand stifled her chance to scream. The other hand pushed her neck down, forcing her body into the wooden floor. Jane grunted and tried to push herself back up. Whoever it was, he was stronger than her. One of his knees thrust between her legs and panic sprang to life in her chest.

She couldn't get up. She couldn't fight or see her attacker.

Behind her, the sounds of unlaced leather and cursing, familiar cursing, echoed at her back. Jane really tried to scream and scramble away now. There are some nightmares she had no intention of living.

* * *

The water sloshed over the sides of the bucket, but Zobink was unrepentant. "I'm not assigning your chores to the younger ranks Traust. You get to get up and do your share same as the rest of us." Traust groaned out something akin to "Devil take the souls of heartless captains". Zobink smiled a little too wide at that.

"Where's Jane?" Huggan asked. The tower of rags was taller than he and wobbled precariously. Zobink looked right and left.

"Hound Master?"

* * *

Jane twisted her elbow into his gut but the soldier gave barely a grunt. He was wearing chainmail around his torso. Jane hollered from behind the hand again, but it was getting harder to breath though the panic and his hand. His grip on her jaw would leave bruises and Jane did not want a reminder of this night. She twisted again and he growled his displeasure. The hand left her mouth to fist in her hair, causing Jane to see stars when her head collided with the floor. Stunned and body now slow to respond he took the time to disrobe her. Screaming, doing, was suddenly a multistep process and Jane's tongue fumbled to form a response.

Close to his end goal, the soldier's actions took on a frenzied pace.

He went for the throat.

Zobink dug his canines in with relish, focusing on the spray of blood against his tongue and teeth and rattled his head to tear the flesh. The man garble out a yell and the hand that fisted in Zobink's scruff got another jaw around his wrist, ankle, two more pawed furiously at his back and side, determined to chew through chainmail if that is what it took. Another couple not in their dog form tackled him with enough force to get him off Jane.

Rekkja, worried a pale, pasty color, checked the Hound Master's vitals and barking out orders to some of the younger ones. The clamor drew attention.

"What in Helheim fire?" The limping cook raised his lantern, which caught the reflective gleam in their eyes. Beside him was Doring, whose jaw slackened into agape astonishment. He swung his arm at them, waving them off and retracting his hand from the few jaws that snapped at him. Zobink dogmatically dug his teeth further in. Doring pried open his jaw.  
"Let him be, boy, I say let him be! One of you, get me a medic."

None of them moved. "I said get me a fucking medic, boys!" The soldier's blood pooled out. "You there," he pointed to the limping cook. "Fetch one of the soldiers sober and stable enough to carry him. Run! Now!" The cook hobbled away, taking his light with him.

"What have you done?" Doring whispered aloud.

Most others crawled over to Jane, whining and cooing at her shaking form. Zobink stared at the blood, willing it to flow faster as the boots marched their approach.

_Nothing nearly enough to what he deserves._

Doring left with the soldiers, not even looking back at Jane or the boys. Zobink padded over softly, his ears and tail drooping. "Hound Master?" She was in the fetal position, crying, and they shift nervously on feet and paws. Her cloak was torn and stretched, hair mussed, and trembling. She didn't get up to move and they said nothing. One fetched her scarf, the length of it dragging along the floor minus the few inches in his mouth.

Huggan, the little one she first helped and hugged, nuzzled his way between her arms and rested his head near her chest, the thump-thump of her heart much faster and louder than the first time. He kisses her, hoping to make it better. Jane hugged him fiercely. Einn awkwardly shifted back and murmured instructions to the others, who dither, not wanting to leave their Hound Master in such a state but Zobink reissued the dictums harshly at those slow to action.

Jane finally sat up, Huggan cradled to her chest, and Samna quietly asked if she'd want a bath. The communal baths are empty this time of night, the water more tepid than warm. As it is, dogs litter the bath tiles and the entrance, keeping watch. No one was to harm their Hound Master like that ever again.

Some see the collar.

None comment on it.

Jane slept little that night. Self-loathing ferments on subjects she never wanted to contemplate: If she remained with Loki, would this not have happened? Loki never acted thus.

But he could. And no one would stop _him_.

Surrounded by small, sleeping shapeshifters who cherished her, solitude reared its ugly head and whispered ominous words into her dreams.

Jane hardened her heart. She had to get out of here. Soon.

Word got round, the soldiers and staff looking at the stable boys differently. Few of the soldiers believed that such young pups would dare raise their fangs against a soldier of Asgard. Some think of retaliation. Talk and gossip buzz. Visco, a grizzled veteran who saw more wars than he liked, grunted out enlightenment when the disbelief and gossip prattled on: "She gave them pack. Home. Brotherhood under the hands of motherhood. Only a fool attacks an Asgardian mother."

The Head cook nodded in agreement and that was that.

Sköll, obscured by a lack of light, watched, listened, and faded away from the stables. The nurse in charge of the east section cried out the morning she found her patient, a soldier, with his throat torn out.

Doring gave the mortal wide berth therein out.

* * *

Loki seldom experienced halcyon times after the night in the library.

He spoke with King Odin that night of the feast and conducted himself properly as a prince of the realm; courteous, diplomatic, charming. Loki's silver tongue and young silver wolf attacked the den of vipers dripping poison around his family's throne. The Lady Amora's face pinched in white-hot fury at the sight of him. She stormed out of the hall before he could offer his condolences to her recently, tragically deceased attendant.

Those that required whipping received their deserved lashes. Loyalists found generous compensation over the next few weeks in perks and power grabs. Debts paid and dued, Kvasir aptly noted and extolled his counsel over the murderous tactics Sköll savored. Sometimes Loki listened. Most times he did not. Skrymir attended his prince as years previous, Loki's ever loyal valet while Bragi imbibed drink and pleasure rival to the old gods of fertility and harvest. The poet warbled out epics in druid-like fashion, slurring and slapping his audience for laughs but Loki's amusements wore thin by the last night of the feast. He found the quietude, if not the solitude, of his chambers more appealing.

Prince Loki immersed himself in his work of Asgardian politics, indulging his physical desires less and growing cantankerous at sharp, sudden intervals more. Night saw Loki restless and irritable beyond immediate consolation, compounded by time and uncertainty. The women were pleasing, comely, fair, skilled, as he prefers his partners to be and still he paced and growled. He had them out of his chambers by morning to air out his bed of their perfumes. Bragi's efforts dwindled as Loki began to turn from them and concentrate his energies on his family, war council, and analyzing the factions at court and strengthening his own hand.

"Let Thor have their favor," he tonelessly informed the heavyset bard. Bragi took the perceived insult to his pride in stride. This was not the first time the prince found boredom in the bedroom.

"A hunting trip with your brother then?"

Loki looked up from his scroll, contemplative. "Very good, Bragi. Send notice to my brother." Bragi beamed and bowed. Aiding his lord was a matter of pride, a common attribute in Asgardians. Bragi would not fail his master in these endeavors. Whatever pleased his master, Bragi would fetch.

Loki's work enabled him to bury himself in the gore and corruption of it all. A rash of "unexpected health complications" and outright assassinations struck the court; a flood of patrons swung back to supplicate and importune themselves before him. Some he forgave, others did not live long enough for him to bother with. Sköll giggled with glee each night he stole away to a certain courtier's chambers, Skrymir slouching after him as he had to magick soundless spells around the rooms for when the boy got too exuberant with his work. Kvasir scribbled away on scrolls to diplomats and old and new ties, chipping away at Groa's, and more importantly Amora's, germinating factions.

Knowledge and rumor gave him power over his enemies, thus Loki had ears and eyes high and low. His pet's foray into the stables did not go unnoticed. What she did there he cared not to listen and focused on the tether—his collar. She had not left the bounds of Asgard Castle, save to enjoy the meadows. Loki stilled his hand.

_Kindness. Patience._ So he told himself.

He did not have time for his pet, yet how she haunted the edges of his thoughts. True to form, Jane flouted his instructions though Loki found no energy to assert his dominance. His wolfish minion Sköll, who reported seeing her in the stables, received an indurate order to watch over her by day. The wolf curled his lip and made no reply. Not when Loki's stormy gaze more grey than green fastened on his person and demanded obedience in that silent, oppressive way of his. Sköll bowed and sulked, doing as he was bidden. His nightly reports were curt and bereft of details and soon stopped all together as Loki lost interest and time. Politics demanded his attention and Sköll preferred his nocturnal commissions to his daily duties. What did it matter what the mortal did in the stables?

Thoughts of his missing songbird faded into a nursed grudge, one he fed bourbon and resentment the nights he spent alone, in silence. He had deaths and near-deaths to mastermind, hunting trips with his brother and afternoons with his mother, occasionally his King, to balance. Jane faded away in such moments.

A particular night Sköll's tail swished with a different sort of anticipation. Loki sipped his drink and watched the fire. His other vassals floated in and out, quietly so as they read his foul mood. Tonight was one of those nights for their lord. Prince Loki curtly told Sköll to cease that infernal tail twitching.

"My own wants request attention tonight," he replied in an off-handed manner yet how those amber eyes were aglow. Loki hummed an open response; he was free for the evening. Sköll shifted and dissipated as smoke, his body rematerializing in the medic ward.

There are sins not even the boy committed.

That night, as a damned soldier chocked on a scream, Loki sipped at his brandy and wondered over his absentee pet. Skrymir trotted in with another treaty and some slips of their spy in the Jolkurg faction. Loki sighed and went back to work.

"You are upset," Frigga observed. They meandered through one of her gardens, a crisp afternoon heavy with the promise of approaching winter. It was not yet cold enough for one's breath to materialize though a warning chill in each breeze existed.  
"Of course I'm vexed," Loki scowled at his mother's back. "I leave for 12 moons and this political abomination greets me as my return gift. What has Odin done in my absence? Gone senile?" Frigga watered the flowers some more, sprucing up their color in a wave of golden-hued magic.

"Political warfare never frustrated you so, my son. Your ire has another cause." The Queen turned to look at her youngest. Knowing wrinkles formed. "Ah, I see. You are lonely."

Loki's scowl slackened. "I most certainly am not, mother. I have no wants of any comfort. I—" Frigga laid a finger on her adopted son's lips.

"It is clear to me as a summer sun, Loki. Your beast spirit craves its comfort." Beast spirit, skinchanger, shapeshifter, other half—words all denoting his wolfish form. For his mother it is a bear, Odin a massive ravine and Thor a lion. They, as Aesir, as noble Asgardians, had the ability to court which animal spirits they housed. For Jotunns, for Loki, it is a matter of birth. Jotunn blood bears Jotunn hounds. Wolves. And wolves want packs.

Prince Loki scoffed. "I have my pack." Thor. Grudgingly Odin. Frigga. Perhaps on a lower level his cortege, irritating as they can be.

Frigga hummed, unconvinced. "From the looks of it, dear one, you unwittingly acquired one more pack mate during your stay in Midgard." His mother ignored the shock coloring his face, trailing a finger from his left temple down to the center of his heart. It beat soundly under her touch.

"Whatever status you bequeath her is up to you but your soul grows restless with an incomplete pack. Sever the bond if you have no further need of her services. Otherwise, find out what you want of her and settle the matter. Presently, and despite your bard's best intentions it seems, you are quite wretched.

"Find your sense of happiness, Loki, and don't relinquish it for anything. And close your mouth. I'm your mother; of course I knew."

Concealed by magic Loki spent that night in the stables, soundless and observant. Unlike mortals and young shapeshifters Loki could go a few days without food or sleep. His steps made no sounds as he waltzed though the stables, memories of an old childhood tickling his mouth into a half-formed smile.

He should not have been surprised finding her thus:

Boys and puppies draped over every conceivable surface in this one stall, sleepy legs stretching and kicking away litter mates for closer access to the female or a soft bit of hay. They snuggled into her hair, stomach, hips, and mimed curlicues at odd junctures to fit into the tiniest spaces.

She left his library for the stables, left the grandeur of his wing for…this.

Loki narrowed his eyes and left to examine her surroundings. Dirty, an offense to his olfactics, and plebian in the worst sense is what he found. Loki was not impressed. She wanted this over him? His fists balled and Loki considered striking her here and now.

One of the puppies whined. A nightmare. Jane grumbled awake, yawning. Her voice was garbled, full of sleep and mellow, musical words. Sleep drew a thick veil across her eyes and they blinked in time with her heartbeat, lethargic and edging back into a drowsy tempo. The pup drifted back to peaceful slumber again. She had a smile when she faded into unconsciousness again.

Loki watched. Loki yearned.

He had never seen her so matronly before. Kind, yes. Maternal, not so much. A part of him pawed irritably at the ground, a sulking, jealous child. He wanted that. Yet she never gave it to him. Not since those days in the city.

_She was reciting astrological mythology again. Deities of war, good omen, winter and mischief all had their place in the sky. The deity of mischief tales caused laughter versus upbraiding. The mortal lay on her back between his ears and down the back of his neck. Comfortable. Close. Loki sighed and rolled his haunches. One squeak of surprise followed by an "oomph!" and Loki felt a tug on his ears for his chortling. Although Jane tried, still tried, Loki was not nearly as ticklish as she. Jane settled for laying on his forelimb; he certainly was big enough. _

_ "Fine then, what do you want to do tonight?" Loki affected boredom. Puffing out her cheeks, Jane pulled on one of his whiskers. Then a wicked gleam glowed in her eyes. "Tag, you're it!" She bobbed him on the nose and climbed on his back. Loki snorted surprise. _

Tag?

_ He tried to shake her off again but Jane was nimble; on her way down, she bopped his nose again. "Tag! You're it again."_

_ His forepaw missed her._

_ "Slowpoke." She dodged under his belly when he stood, now actively looking for her. The game didn't last long, the cage being too small and restrictive, but Loki found his tongue lolling in anticipation as he gleefully scooped her up in his mouth. Or so he thought. His teeth grasped at air. She was beyond him, outside the cage bars, breathless, beaming, and flushed._

_ "Can't catch me." _

_ Loki pawed angrily at the bars, striking them with his claws to create a loud clatter each time. Alarmed, Jane made shushing noises, coming closer to stroke his nose yet still not in the cage. He grumbled as he pressed his snout up into the bars._

_ Soft hands smoothed out the ridges on his snout. "It's okay, Kaunaz. One day you'll be free, and then you won't need me." _

Wrong.

Without her he was unhappy. Her presence did not make him happy; rather she invoked nostalgia and serenity. Comfort. That was not happiness, but it was something he could not do without.

Nor would he have to. A prince, after all, has more rights than the common man.

His steps were light and precise, his body bent at an angle careful such that he touched only Jane. Thermally enticing, silken for someone dedicated to hard labor as a living. Loki's fingers left her cheeks to trace her open palm. The fingers twitched, as he played with the calluses, rough and ossified just below her joints, the flesh stitched together with uncountable minute scars. His eyes went back to her face, narrowing at the scarf she donned, and centered, transfixed, on her breathing. Steady, short snores and a rabbit's vellicating nose. A furrow knitted her brow the more she breathed, shoulders rolling uneasily.

Loki transferred his weight to the back of his heels. No way she sensed him.

Jane opened her eyes to darkness, the sky paled the barest beginnings of day while the stables remained underlit.

Consciousness was slow to form, molasses-thick torpor drugging her kinesthesia. Primal fear bit into the base of her spine and Jane lurched into an upright sitting motion. The puppies grunted as they hit the floor, boys garbling curses and questions if awaken.

There was no one there.

Jane took a steadying breath, running fingers through her hair.

No one was there.

Safe. She was safe.

Jane staggered to the baths, unable to stop looking over her shoulder at intervals. The fear didn't dissipate, merely fizzling into a ghostly sensation along her spine. Rising sunlight bleached the sky a transparent blue by her return, her bangs still wet and teasing her forehead. Her hair was getting longer. Jane thought she'd need to cut it before her departure. Cool breath tickled the nape of her neck.

"Songbird."

.

.

.


	6. Chapter 6

**More general editing. Finally, finally able to really buckle down on chapter 7. Long way to go on that one. Don't hold your breath.**

**Hawkz**

* * *

_A Kindness: Chapter 6_

No one was there.

Boneless from the fear eating away her insides, Jane slumped to the floor. Breathes harsh if not hyperventilating, she was vaguely aware of a panic attack inducing.

No one was there.

She had to repeat it, part prayer, part reassurance.

No one was there.

No one had ever been there.

_He_ was not there.

Her heart hammered to an erratic beat, unsure if it wanted to pulse to a stop or flood her system with adrenaline and instead doing both at once.

A hallucination?

Audible manifestation of her fears?

She rubbed at the back of her neck. It was damp. Sweat, she told herself, it is just sweat. Jane forced logical thought to the forefront. Loki was not hot; he wasn't even warm to the touch. He was cold and death and cruelty. More importantly, he was not here. A sick lump in her throat made swallowing difficult. Why was she so terrified at the thought Loki might be here? She stood up to him plenty of times before.

Because down in her primal soul, she was terrified of that monster. That goblin gatekeeper of her gilded cage. The terror Jane felt was true.

The Hound Master ran a hand through hair just long enough to braid. That blood-gone-cold distress lingered, shocking her spine with shivers. Horripilation prickled her skin. Jane set her jaw. It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

Because she was leaving.

Today.

Herbal concoctions, her jars of ointment and basic medicine, travel-ready food and water, flint and her knife—she packed carefully, quickly. There was no snow in the valley but winter was coming and surviving it would be tough without her pack. She courted death by trying to endure autumn, then winter alone. She courted purgatory, however, if she stayed. Jane flinched at little Huggan struggling to generate warmth alone. He, perhaps more than the others but equal to Zobink, grew attached to her and floundered without her presence to guide him. Her eyes grew soft as she rubbed his ears and his whimpering died down.

She could not take them with her. They would slow her down. They wouldn't survive. A number of reasons, some full of reason, most full of emotion and not the flattering kind. Jane ached for her pack, her family, and using these shapeshifter as a quasi-replacement was a hurtful thing to do. It was a small self-comfort she allowed herself to believe in. Jane whispered to Zobink to take care of them. He could be alpha material. He would ensure their survival. Like Huggan, Zobink leaned into her hand, sighing contently in his dog form. Jane withdrew and fought to harden her heart.

She could not stay.

She could not.

None of the guards or scullions gave her any mind, quick, cursory glances if even that. One offered a nod and greeting of "Hound Master." Jane walked towards the gates with a slight tremor in her hand and twisting knots in her gut. She half expected Loki to snatch her from within the shadows.

She breathed a squeeze easier when she touched the stables' doors.

A massive warhorse slammed open the oak doors, the gate's latch just missing Jane's eye. Alas, her wrist felt the equivalent of being dipped in molten lead minus the burns coupled followed by the horse's hoof hitting her dead center. Jane felt the tell-tale crack in her ribcage. She went down, out of breath and in too much pain. The other hoof just missed her head. The pain was reminiscent of Hel's fire, although Jane's initial scream was overrun by curses and gritted teeth. Gods above, it hurt to breath, forget screaming. Jane rolled on the floor, groaning through gritted teeth. She glared through slitted, watery eyes at the retinue of soldiers, particularly the blonde one responsible for her current straits.

"Condemned Helheim souls!" He dismounted briskly, holding the reins of his warhorse. "What are you doing at the gates at this hour?" He did not look apologetic, mouth set in an arrogant purse. Jane seethed and tried to stand. Uncurling was a bold move and one her body could not support. Jane stood anyway, stumbling her way to balance and forcing the words through hisses of pain.

"Waiting for fools like you who don't know basic stable etiquette and safety, clearly. What sort of moronic ass doesn't properly dismount before entering the stables?" If there had not been ringing in her ears, Jane would have heard how the din went ghostly quiet. The soldiers behind the blonde stiffened and at least one hand went to the rapier at his side. The guards on post at the stables shifted uneasily, knowing whose side they would take and with some wishing otherwise. Hidden behind hands and bowed heads, however, were a few smiles.

This was new.

"Fool?" he echoed, his tongue working the words awkwardly.

"Yes," she panted, forced down to one knee. "I'm glad we're in agreement."

She slapped his hand away when he made to help her stand. One of the soldiers laughed, his whole belly heaving with the motions. The blonde scowled, gruffly telling Volstagg to shut it and for Fandral to stop smiling. Neither complied.

As soon as Jane went to stand again, putting weight on her leg it buckled, her body unable to cope with the mental strain and physical discomfort Jane imposed on it. It required rest, care. And the pain. So many cramps in every breath. The fool caught her before she hit the ground. Jane sucked in another breath and her lungs rattled like the paper windmills children blow on in the summer. Broken fingers and dislocated shoulders did not prepare her for fractured—broken?—ribs. Her wrist and ribs vied for attention and the overload on her senses straitened her vision. Taking long blinks got rid of the purple-black spots albeit an opaque film covered her line of sight. His beard rubbed against the top of her head as he talked.

"Let go, you crinose cretin," she hissed. His hands stilled. A wave of vertigo assaulted her stomach when he rapidly turned her round to face him. He had bright, bright cerulean eyes.

"You!" Happiness lit his features.

Jane leaned back, still in his grip—the only thing keeping her upright. "Me?" she slurred. The smile and eye color she saw, but the rest of him was a red-caped blur.

One of the guards stepped forth, nervous and brave. He pled clemency. "…So you see m'lord, she is new to our ranks but dear here. A stupid woman who let the pain go to her head. She meant no disrespect. I suspect that if she knew who you were, Prince Thor, she would show the proper decorum. But, Hound Master Jane is young. We will sort her out, I assure you."

Jane went deathly pale. P_rince? Oh no. No, no, no, not again._

"No," Thor said to the shock of the group. "That will not be necessary soldier. I will take care of it. I suppose," here he grinned and Jane found it not as malicious as she anticipated, "it is my fault after all.

"Come." He picked her up like she weighed nothing, and Jane winced as he jostled her not-too-gently in his hold. "I will set you to rights." He tossed the reigns to one of the soldiers, and made to walk out of the stables with Jane held like a doll.  
"No, wait, I'm not going with you!" He did not slow down. Jane sucked in a hiss when his hold jostled her wrist.

"I'll have one of my healers look at your injuries. To be harmed by such a light touch—" Jane snorted and regretted the action. Being rammed by an Asgardian warhorse was not a light touch. "—you must not be Aesir. From where do you hail?"  
"I'm not going, ouch, look, will you—stop!" Thor did. She struggled for clarity, however, the disconnect between body and brain due to all the pain churned most of her words into distortion. "Just, just let me get my things and see to my pack, alright?" His brow formed a quizzical furrow at her odd choice of words but his reply did not come forth.

A sharp jaw of canine fangs snapped close to his Achilles' tendon, missing it due to the prince's quick reflexes. Thor withdrew his short sword the next moment.

"No!" The authority in her voice stilled both of them. "Stand down Zobink." Pain or not, almost twenty years of inbred protectiveness for her canine companions sprung to the front and sharpened her mind enough to focus.

The boy shapeshifter paced around the two, growling and snarling. He was not happy about the Hound Master's command. Jane repeated it and reluctantly he backed a step, fangs still bared. Prince Thor quirked a brow at the odd display.

_This is a Hound Master?_ No such thing existed in Asgardian society. He looked beyond the snarling dog to see a plethora of boys, some shifted into dog form, huddled on the sidelines and more than a few faces hostile. Like soldiers fighting for their general.

Thor grinned. He set Jane down.

"You command these gamins?" The memory that this man was a prince came too late: Jane swatted his bicep. Thor's eyes went wide at her bravado and Jane tried to ignore the tremors of fear giving her gooseflesh. She just hit a prince. Again.  
"Do not insult my pack." The boys stood straighter, those showing fear beforehand now boasting traces of courage.

Little Huggan ran across that unseen line the others didn't cross and found her ankles. He was crying and whining in dog form. Jane crouched down—groaning at the wave of pain it induced and the boys tensed at the sound of her pain. Zobink growled something threatening and it produced a ripple effect in his brethren.

Thor frowned down at him, his sword unsheathed and his grip loose albeit not unguarded.

Jane left his presence and welcomed the fold of her pack, more boys surging forth as courage and concern won over trepidation. Huggan cradled to her chest, Jane murmured comforts and reassurances as her fingers skimmed between pairs of ears and tapping noses. Rekkja felt her sternum and ribs, frowning at what he found and shared his findings with Zobink in undertones too soft for mortal ears. Samna barked orders and Einn slunked in the back with the others, edgy, scared, and agitated all at once.

_A prince in the stables? Looking at their Hound Master? They couldn't go against a prince! The Prince of Asgard. If Zobink ordered an attack… Zobink would; he was viscerally brash and violent, and no Hound Master could change him, channel his inclinations perhaps, but not change his disposition._ Similar thoughts ran around corrupted by the uncertainty of the moment and the surprise of a prince—the Prince of Asgard—coupled with their Hound Master.

Rekkja rose her tunic and they all saw the growing bruise, intense purples veins in a black darker than death and small percolations of blood from where the skin popped open. Zobink snarled at him and the prince pointed his sword at the dog, grin long gone.

"Do not take that tone with me cur."

Jane held him back. "No Zobink. No. He is going to take me to a healer. He is going to fix this and then I'll be back. I'll be back. Einn." She called him over. She had to speak slow and softly as her lungs protested louder than before and Jane feared a rib all but puncturing her soft insides. In between whistling rasps, Jane gave her orders, possibly her good-byes. "Watch the little ones. See that they eat and drink right while I'm away." A wave of unsettled whines and words crushed her close, backing away only when Rekkja snapped about the bruise. "It's okay. Samna, Rekkja, Einn, you know your duties. No slacking Traust." She knew all their names, every name, by heart and patted each before she stood, little Huggan sobbing up a storm. "Zobink," she said. He was the last. Wet, purple eyes stared up at her, the boy no longer in dog form.

"Don't go," he croaked. Like he knew.

Jane forced a smile. "You're in charge while I'm gone."

Huggan refused to release her boot laces. "Huggan," Jane wheezed more than sighed. Thor walked over and picked up the pup with one hand, Jane the other. The pup he tossed back. There was no oxygen for Jane to protest; a spasm of pain sent her into a racking fit, much to the alarm of her audience. Jane watched them over Thor's shoulder, one eye cracked open to see her pack's disconsolate faces, until the large oak doors creaked close and the scent of hay diminished the more flights of stairs they walked. The higher they rose they more alone Jane felt in the splendid halls of castle of Asgard.

* * *

The Jotunn shapeshifter hid his irascibility well. Centuries of practice after all. He was not pleased being forced to leave his songbird behind after shouldering the burden of her absence so long. A rancid aftertaste oiled his tongue and his Jotunn blood burned as his body ached to shift yet he denied it. His wolf blood was not happy—lonely, if his mother's words could be believed—and Loki suffered its unfulfilled desires. More than anything he wanted to bear his fangs in Odin's face, verbally cut him down—how the darker, secretive parts of his soul yearned for physical retribution after all these years—and be gone from this place. He could not. That and only a fool openly displayed anger at his king.

"King Odin," he intoned, kneeling and solicitous before his elder, "you summoned me?"

The old Aseir stood next to a resplendent chair within his quarters. Fire crackling to his side, papers and tea mug on his table, none of it touched, and a hard, distant eye trained on his ward. For any other man, the portrait painted a welcoming air, the idea of hearth and home so closely linked in Asgardian culture; however, where his wife exuded warmth and kindness, Odin siphoned off any relaxed, mischievous atmosphere and replaced it with something tense and nerve-racking. But then, Loki was not Thor. Loki was not his son.

The trickster felt knuckles clench on top of his knees and forced them to unwind. His mind brought up the smell of meadows, milk and honey, heavy on the candid and whiffs from her spooning in his sheets; the tension in his shoulders grew slack.

It being too early in the morning for sunlight to dawn, the fire was the only source of light in the room. The curtains had yet to be drawn. The tapestries Loki grew up seeing shifted between light and dark, until the Asgardian warriors were indistinguishable from the very monsters they slew. "How apt," a snarky mortal voice whispered in his ears and Loki tamped down on the smirk. He tucked the thought away for later; presently, he could not afford the distraction. Loki noted the lack of servants, even Odin's trusted two valets Huginn and Muninn, as Odin dumped his tea into the hearth and refilled the cup himself. Barrel-chested and thick, overlapping scars over his hands drew an incongruous picture with the dainty porcelain tea cup in his hand. There was a second one on the table, empty but it wasn't prior to Loki's entry. Loki noted the undertone of citrus. Orange.

_Mother._

Odin sat. It was not a throne but it may have well been with Loki knelt before him and the imperial posture the old man bore. What was spoken here would stay here. Odin took a calm draught of his newly poured tea, bitter as his frown. The silence went on. The king took another sip.

"The Court has noted your return as of late," he said. Loki did not stand.

"And I their tendency to profligate in my absence." The barb was there and Odin's eyes hardened but he did not speak out. With the next blink, he brushed aside his ward's words.

"Your disagreements with the Lady Amora have grown rather loud. Tame that beast of yours least I put him to eternal rest." The shift was minute but defensive.

"Is that all, my king?"

"No." Loki's jaw grit behind a mask of magic. Odin spoke of names and suspicions while Loki acknowledged the means he had of taking care of it. His king bade him away with a wave of his hand, eyes back on the fire. "I trust," the king drawling, his low voice pulling the younger shapeshifter back like a dog on a leash, "that there will be no distractions until the deeds are done?"

The image of a particular mortal haunted the youngling. A possessive hum tightened his chest—Odin had no right to such demands. However, Odin knew not the affairs of his ward's heart and Loki liked to keep it that way. Let the castle be ignorant of his toy's presence a little longer yet. He was not quite ready to share.  
Loki bowed in agreement and was gone.

Skrymir had his breakfast ready for his return, his favorites with tea, orange marmalade, thick rye bread steaming fresh, and small delicacies he knew Loki enjoyed. Slices of prosciutto and its fat glistened on a gold-beaten platter. Loki looked at it all. One hand gripped the edge of the table and he flipped it, expensive porcelain, precious metal work, and finery crashing to the floor. Loki's face was impassive but his eyes were copper-infused fire, all traces of blue gone. He summoned the rest of his underlings.

"Your duties in the stables are over," he told his wolf. His songbird was not going anywhere and he wanted this settled. Now. He would break Amora's grip within the next month or the bloodied package he sent her of her favorite, most recent lover would be least of her concerns. He looked over his attendants, pupils slitted and only a small blue ring within the green. Skrymir felt the crackling undercurrent of magic and stared at his labor, ruined on the floor. Kvasir's only give away was the drumming of fingers on his cane.

"Bragi," he seethed, the magic microphoning his vocal chords without him shouting. "Get down here." The portly Asgardian moved too slowly for his taste, Loki snarling as he summoned him with a snap of his fingers. Bragi lurched to his knees, the summoning of vassals rarely a kind journey on the stomach. He saw his lord's ire, but Loki cut him off before the questions formed.

"If Lady Ilmr is not in my bed stripped and wanting in ten minutes, you can attempt to make excuses while I rip out your tongue with the hearth's pincers." Sköll dared not grin at the poet's rapidly retreating figure. Loki turned his attention to the rest of his vassals. "Wake up the rest. I want her faction broken before the blood month is out."

And bloody it would be.

* * *

He did not know what to do with her anymore.

His healer worked his magic on her, startled by her quick tongue yet Thor found it charming, this intelligence and waspish wit. Some of the women of the court might match her but they acted cold, many rebuffing male for female companionship Thor found. They were cold whereas his little new found Hound Master was warm. Delightfully warm. Thor discovered her eyes glowed with delight when he gave her a book to read while the magician performed his tasks. But the magician had long gone, along with much of the pain to Jane's wide-eyed surprise, and though his servants and retinue of soldiers provided a noisy ambiance, the silence between this Hound Master and he Thor found alien and awkward. People talked to him easily; they all but gushed in his presence. This one did not. She and his brother anyway. Thor felt another smile work his face. Perhaps the similarities, and from there the dissimilarities, between the two is what drew him in. Guile, he realized, was not in her nature.

She refused to take off the scarf while the healer knitted her ribs back together and Thor indulged her. It was a wooly, ratty thing and reeked of unwashed dog and hay. Thor snapped his fingers for the attentions of a scullery maid. Her murmured words to low for Jane to catch, absorbed as she was in the book. She happily bowed out and dashed away.

Thor cleared his throat. "You never did tell me from where you hail."

"Far away," she deadpanned.

Thor chewed his cheek. She just might give his brother a run for his money. He sighed and chewed on his bowl of candy. Today's treat was honey coated green apple slices, dusted with thick granules of brown sugar. He held it out to his patient. Her conflicting wants were amusing to see and Thor was patient.

She finally took one.

The silence stretched on.

"I'm sorry," he said at last. "For knocking into you. I will have to be more careful in the future."

Jane nodded. "Apology accepted." Thor flashed her a beatific smile and Jane felt herself flush the palest shade of pink.

"Did you work with livestock previously? I've never seen such loyalty from dogs." There was nothing mocking in his tone. Genuine admiration colored his words.

"I used to take care of them. Back where I'm from." Thoughts of Kazi made her throat constrict. "Back in the far east."

"Vanaheim?"

"No." There words were slow but his blue eyes encouraged speech. "A Midgardian city. Where is Anaheim?"

"Vanaheim. It is where the Vanirs live and are masters of magic and sorcery. They taught my brother much over the years but it is my Mother who is the true Mistress of Mages. Princes from all over the realms come and stay at the castle to be taught our ways with weapon and magic."

Jane snorted. "You think very highly of Asgard, I see."

Thor nodded. "It is my home. Do you not cherish yours similarly so?"

She looked away. "My home had its beauty but all its faults and vices I was not blind to." Thor played with his fingers, aware of the heavy awkwardness his words introduced. He wondered at the past tense of her verb. Silence dropped in again like stone in water. Thor ate a few more apple slices before awkwardly rolling into conversation. He did not have the smooth grace of his brother when it came to lingual talents.

"When I'm away for long crusades, I miss eating snow cones on the macadam roads that wind through the spice market. Preferably in summer. It's a heady assault on your senses. The sun bakes the tar and stone until it's warm under bare feet. Too much shade from the terraces and banners overhead shield the market from direct sunlight, giving the pavement a wonderful balance. Warm but not blisteringly hot. Ivy and flowers grow on the terraces, so not much sunlight filters though but Asgard is warm enough with or without shade. The heat bakes spices in the air, too. On workdays it's all savory sage, thyme, and turmeric. The weekends see sugared cinnamon and the finer, more subtle scents for tea." Thor laughed. "I could talk more afternoons than there are stars to describe all the flavors and smells of that market."

"Please," she said, softly. Jane wasn't aware the word even slipped out until his eyebrows rose in surprise. Jane looked away, unsure, but by the time she looked back Prince Thor wore a gentle expression and wore away the morning telling her of the spice market on a midsummer day. The bowl of candied apples dwindled, cups of water following it.

"Do you miss anything about it?" he finally asked. "About your home?"

Jane looked a little lost at the thought. "My home," she began after a beat, "hasn't been my home for many years. It…" Jane took a breath. "My home is searching for me and I my home." Kazi. Gunner. Baldur. Mosey-Rosey. Dreyfuss. Fi—Jane cleared her throat. "Yes, I must get going. It's a long journey ahead and—" Jane got to her feet and grimaced.

Thor stood tall over her. "Relax, Hound Master. You are still injured. Do not take broken ribs lightly, even those healed by an Aesir healer. You have another week a rest ahead of you, at least four days."

"What?" Jane's eyes went wide.

Thor offered placating gestures. "I know it's quite a long time to wait, but I will see to your—"

"Only a week?" They stared at each other.

"Only a week," Thor finally echoed. "How long does it usually take your body to heal?"

"What do you mean how long? Any body's body would take weeks—months!—to heal from several broken bones."

Thor dropped her elbow as if cursed. "Weeks? Months? Are mortals so frail?" Jane rolled her eyes.

"Hardly frail, we're just not as…hardy as Aesir, I suppose. Would you heal so quickly without magic?"

He answered an affirmative instantly. "We Aesir are made of the hardiest, strongest blood." Jane's deadpanned stare held a shade of mischievous amusement. She pinched with a twist the soft skin under his bicep and watched him jump and yelp. He rubbed the affected area in a sulking manner. "…although, now that I think of it, even we Aesir have our weak spots."

She chuckled then, bordering on a laugh, and Thor decided he liked the sound it, how it set her eyes aglow and softened her features. Thor smiled back. One of the valets escorted a tailor inside Thor's chambers.

"Wonderful!" Thor clapped, a great booming noise. The wizen man draped several wool scarves on a proffered table and bowed.

"Do any of these please you, my prince?" Thor encouraged Jane over, gesturing to his side and then the scarves.

"Hound Master?" he inclined.

Jane couldn't believe it. These were very fine, thick wooled scarves. Jane ran her fingers down one of them. These scarves would weather winter though winter, the stitching firm and embroidered to last. Triple stitched? Thick, too, and ridiculously long. Some were garish, full of too many colors and too many images but they were designs worthy of royalty. Her fingers flinched back, that fear creeping into her limbs once more.

_A prince. Royalty. People in power. What was she doing? Surely he didn't mean to give her one._

But he did. As an apology and in gratitude for her company. So he said with that same honest smile and encouraged her to leaf through all the fabrics.

A thick lump of something emotional built in her throat.

Jane picked up a simple red one. "Thank you," she whispered. Thor beamed. He paid the man for all the scarves and proceeded to pass them out to loitering servants as if he were giving candy to children. Jane noticed the affection and loyalty in the servants gaze. Thor was prince, hero, and caregiver to these people, and Thor, Prince Thor, was kind.  
The thought warmed Jane. Maybe not all royals, then, were bad. Thor's inquisitive gaze told her she spoke those thoughts aloud. His larger, calloused hand touched her cheek. "Don't worry Hound Master; you are under good care here." His eyes held truth.

"Jane."

"What?"

"My name…It's Jane."

The prince smiled. "It's a pleasure. Hound Master Jane."

Jane liked Thor.

It was as simple as that. He was attentive in all the ways that startled Jane each time she was on the receiving end of such kindness. His gestures had a tenderness to them Jane could weep over and weep she did.

A particularly erudite slave, one of the helots under Thor's domain, woke her one morning, burdened with quills, parchment and uncountable thin pamphlets stitched with delicate string and even more delicate paper. His accent slurred at the best of times but he had the patience and nose-tweaking affections of a grandfather. Most Asgardian runes had a Midgardian letter counterpart, plus some extra symbols for their unique syntax and sound. Learning by rote proved the most enduring method, and her tutor kept a steady supply of ink and paper on hand that week. Jane was sorry to see him go, him tweaking her nose as he half complimented her prodigious mind.

Prodigious mind begets prodigious curiosity, Thor discovered, and curiosity did not approve or abide by stagnation. He mock frowned at finding her out of her bed when she should be resting.

Her bed.

Just hers.

Another gesture that sent another flutter of butterflies zinging through her intestines and beyond. She was either sick or physically attracted to the man. Neither option boded well. Jane flinched at being caught, again, head half-turned as if anticipating the blow. It never came. She heard Thor sigh and adjust his position in his chair.

"What new phenomenon has fixated your mind, Hound Master Jane?" Thor lounged as princes are apt to do, lazily waving a servant to add additional logs to the fire. Autumn was no time to underestimate the cold. Feeling his stare, Jane cracked open an eye.

Prince Thor donned a lazy smile in her honor.

Catching her gaze, he winked and took a long, satisfying draught of his spiced wine. Jane dropped her eyes to the book's title, assuring herself of the subject matter. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach, working their way north until her heart and lungs jumped and stuttered at his presence. This was a parlous game her passions were playing. Jane forced a swallow and marveled at the dry feeling in her mouth. Anything to ignore the creeping burn of a blush spreading from ear to ear and leaving a red wake across her cheeks. "Numbers," she replied. "But," her throat bobbed in a swallow, "ah, they have these phrases and symbols my tutor never taught me, so it's…difficult." Jane wrinkled her nose, discontented having knowledge just out of reach.

Thor extended a hand to one of the empty chairs next to him. Very close to him. Jane sat. He silently asked for the book, flipped through so many pages and handed it back to her. Jane received it, bewildered and grateful all the same. Some unseen gesture between prince and valet occurred for the soldier-stoic man standing at attention melted easily into fluid movement.

A small caldron he hung atop the fire, a blend of honey, lemon and ginger until it reduced to a viscous syrup, and strained the mixture through a fine-woven mesh so all that remained was a tantalizing color and smell. The snap of a conjuration chilled it, dusting hoarfrost along the outside of the syrup's new container. One cork pop later, a glass cup—one far more delicate than the ligneous stein Prince Thor regularly imbibed from—received a generous helping of distilled malted grain, piping hot. An artful arc of syrup he drizzled in, stirred just enough to turn the drink a sallow yellow with shadows of an opaque fallow at the edges.

The valet presented it with a hint of a smile that grew at her expressed wonder. He returned to his statuesque position as Thor beckoned her attention. The drink warmed her hands but not her mouth. The smell of alcohol made her leery. Surely it was not wise to indulge in barbiturates during her stay.

"To understand those numbers, time rather, you must first understand us."

"Us?"

"Aesir. Asgardians." He leaned over and took back the book, opening it to an illustrated page. "When it comes to time, we keep it in the language of the gods. There are ten months in our calendar—" His finger drew a guiding line across the pages. "—each with their own rites and feasts and festivals to commemorate certain deities or part of the season that is significant to our culture. This month is Blōtmōnaþ, where in so many days time we sacrifice animals at the altars and store up for winter. Hence, its title which means 'blood month'. It culminates in a huge feast from many of those livestock. Hœrfestmonaþ and Winterfylleth respectively occur earlier where we reap the harvests, celebrate the equinox and then the beginning of winter. Time is imbued with significant meaning for us and not taken lightly. Some of the more conservative priests consider it sacrilege to eat given dishes outside of their seasonal jurisdiction but don't worry." He winked again, "We have a festival for that, too."

"What sort of dishes?" The question could not be restrained. Thor's boyish smile in reply enticed her closer. He rubbed the stubble of his beard in a mock sagely manner.

"Flapdragon is the favorite come winter. Brandy, shallow bowls and bite-sized pieces of fruit or almonds are the necessary ingredients. Oh, yes, fire too."

Jane swished her own drink, now three sips lighter. "Alcohol and fire? I don't think our cultures are so different, all things given." Prince Thor tilted his head.

"Then you Midgardians light the brandy on fire as well?"

"What?" Her drink nearly spilled.

"Well, it wouldn't be a very sporting game, Hound Master Jane, if the brandy were not on fire. A game made too easily is not fun at all. Without the fire, there's not obstacle between you and the fruit."

"But, but that would burn you." Her eyebrows pinch in a way Thor comes to associate with Jane's bamboozled look. It is rather endearing. "And doesn't the fruit melt at those temperatures?"

Thor's eyes light up and his chest puffed; Jane found him too boyish, too honest in his opinions to think him a braggadocio. "We Aesirs are made of hearty mead and metal." The mortal diplomatically took another sip and said nothing. Her eyes drifted back to the book as Thor expounded on the superiority of Aesir and their kin. The alcohol softened bone and sinew, Jane's posture slouching into something slothful as she leaned against the armrest. Her ears drank in the cultural tidbits Thor had to share. "…thus we offer patronage to the Goddess of the Dawn for the coming of spring. The next month allows for trail marriages. Any couple seeking matrimony may join in the manner of man and wife for three weeks to see if they are compatible. If not, they part ways, no stigma, no shame and the children resulting of that are seen as legitimate."

Jane blinked. "That's, actually very progressive of your society." Thor beamed as if she praised him personally. She felt warm all over and glared at her drink in blame. A soldier under command entered and knelt before his prince. Thor nodded at the message and rose, suddenly sober and phlegmatic.

"Dinner shall be up in the hour. Help yourself to what pleases you or Forseti will see to your desires, if you will make them known." The valet inclined in a bare bow, more a a head tilt than anything. The lapidary expression broke under the threat of a minute, one-sided dimple. Jane turned back to Thor, mouth opened to form a protest or plea, she wasn't sure which, but rising too quickly sent a pained gasp past her lips. Thor bulldozed on, his hand heavy and firm as he eased her back into the chair. "Take care Hound Master Jane." He smiled at the title still. "Perhaps once you are well, we can see to your other desires." His hand lingered a touch long and Jane suddenly felt chilled.

She shook her head; surely not.

He donned the necessary apparel and pivoted on heel, ruffling the exuberant red cape behind him. Forseti, the smoldering gleeds in the hearth, and Jane were the only remaining spirits. The room felt colder lacking Thor's presence.

The evening repast was a savory pie encased in a flaky, butter-glazed pastry shell. Rich, glutinous broth coated everything, ribbons of chicken and bright bursts of peas, carrots, and a sensation of spices Jane never had the pleasure of eating before. It was the headiest of highs, and Jane gorged as a man deprived. Jane thought back to that spice market Thor told her about and smiled around the spoon.

Her eyes darted to the empty chairs around her. Forseti, the valet, stood quietly to the side. Gathering bravery took an additional swallow.

"Why don't you join me, sir?"

Forseti's demeanor did not change, one dimple shy of a full smile. "Tis not my place, Hound Master." He graced her with a title like one does a High Lord and Jane felt like jester sitting on a throne.

"Not mine either," she mumbled around the spoon. She longed for company unattached to power or without strings of hidden agenda. Someone relatable on a level, any level, and Thor's charm aside, the hollowness from the absence of her dogs went unfilled still. Foresti shifted, acute in sensing her sorrow. The smile and words he gave were of no comfort, and he read it in her plastic smile. The valet lingered in clearing the dishes, but he had nothing more to say. He could not give her what she wanted.

Such proved the extent of their relationship as the days passed and Thor's periodic absences grew. Jane's state remained much the same.

Jane ran her fingers across one side of her ribs. The bruises were still there and bending hurt in that old ache sort of way, sharp in reminder when you exerted yourself beyond injured capability. She thought she was better. The healers performed more shamanistic ritual than medical procedure, but then left in a huff when she asked—pointedly made her opinions clear in something just shy of a command—to do the bindings herself. While it gained her a few respectful nods from the domestic staff, the healers had been indignant. Thor chuckled when told so and let her be, and none could argue with that. The greasy unguent they left with her, in addition to the bindings, had to be reapplied every other day but the soothing chill made the persistent pinguid coating on her fingers worth it. No matter how vigorously she washed, her finger pads remained slick and Jane resigned herself to clumsy exploits and embarrassments until she healed or ran out of the greasy medicine.

Thor's absence every few days provided her with extra degrees of freedom. No inquisitive eyes or curiosity that could bleed into suspicion, but then, he was far less wary than her previous…"benefactor". His library was magnificent in its own way—she refused to dwell on the memories of the monster that brought her here, to which action proved a detracting outlet—and Jane's request for maps of the local topography and castle blueprints were not unheeded. Forseti accompanied her as a guide and acted as translator when she needed it or if the dictionaries fell insufficient, but he left Jane to solitude more times than not, and his attention, while exemplar as a valet, jumped back to opening doors at the sound of thundering boots. His loyalties and true attentions laid not with her. Still, it was benign neglect, of which Jane took full advantage. Midgardian script was unreadable to her captors and it was that alphabet which filled her journal, another gift of the absentee prince. Maybe she wouldn't have to flee under the cover of darkness and obscure tunnels, but if she did, Jane would be ready.

Still, the shock of the distance between her home and Asgard as according to the map turned her insides into cold jelly. Almost three thousand leagues. Three. Thousand. Leagues. Even if the river took her ten miles from the city and even if she walked another twenty in those days before, before he took her, he still transported them three thousand leagues.  
Jane felt sick. She was sick, and then had to wave off their concerns with the evasion that mortals do this when heavily injured on occasion.

Three thousand leagues. How would she ever make it back home? Her family was months away, maybe even years!  
That night she cried, feeling as alone and bereft as when she grieved for Finn.

What if she never saw her family again?

The thought stung in its possibility and plagued her as she wandered the halls, never far from Foresti and all the more alone for it. Weeks into her stay with the prince, Jane wasted time looking outside the windows as melancholy nursed on her battered resolve. Too high up to see individual details, she knew that ambling gait and shade of honey hazel. Huggin. He loped after whomever had livestock duty that day, still ungainly in his movements. Jane wondered if he'd ever grow into them. The newly formed distance between the few comforts she found in this foreign place hurt. It was easy to move from hurt to anger and then to use that as a motivating force. Jane found her feet, found some stairs and began descending.

Her movements startled Forseti. "Hound Master? Hound Master! Prince Thor returns today!"

"Then go greet him Forseti!" She picked up her pace, skipping steps and using gravity to her advantage. Her lungs and wrist rarely hurt anymore but exerting them sparked throbs of pain. Jane pressed on.

"But, wait!" he hollered. "He will want to speak with you upon your return! To see how you fared in his absence."

"I'm not a pining companion. I have things to do before I go home." He caught her at the stable entrance.

"Hound Master, you are in the company of the prince. You cannot—" She whistled unlike anything Foresti had seen or heard, a two-fingered affair that resulted in a sharp, high sound. The footman stumbled back a step but kept his grip on her elbow. Confusion furrowed his brow after a beat. "What—?"

Dogs and boys rushed out, at least two of them only half dressed, and Jane went down in an imbricating sequence of licks, hugs, words, limbs and general show of love. The commotion drew notice of a few soldiers.

"Hey! The Hound Master's back!" Forseti found himself outnumbered and outmaneuvered on all fronts. The drinking and revelry and comforts of the accustomed lasted only the day. Thor came for her by noon on the morrow. Baneful purple eyes watched the Prince take his Hound Master a second time, brushing aside protests with counterclaims of "healing" and "not yet". Hugging cried a second time and the mutterings of his pack swelled and died like a sigh. Zobink and his ire, however, grew enflamed as once more the prince stepped over the concerns of his brethren.

He decidedly did not like this prince. And he wanted his Hound Master back.

Zobink looked at the stall she occupied naught but a fortnight ago.

Her bag and things were noticeably missing.

_She wouldn't…_ Zobink slept uneasily that night.

The days following, Thor suspected nothing, eager to share his knowledge of the local land and Asgard's castle upon his return. However, Thor believed less in talking; he showed her.

Outside the castle and into the town below.

It was a first, to Jane's gratifying surprise, of many, many visits. While her journeys to the valley to feed the livestock were well within the castle's boarders, this was a trip into town. To people so much like her and mind-bogglingly different. All the books failed to tell her of the sensations: Sights, smells, tingling touches of almost-snow, and the youthful naivety she had about the world did not sting.

It invigorated her. After far too many weeks, almost months, inside the castle, stepping outside it's moated boundaries would feel like breathing again.

Butchers, bakers, and carpenter-makers; bedazzlement and befuddlement over bearded bards and their throaty limericks; thieves flogged for their light-fingered tricks; hunchbacked smithies smelling of steel, leather, especially singed hair; flexible dancers all silk-clad and fair; gold-toothed merchants swindling and singing the praise of their chattel—from refreshments served in ceramic pots to fabrics wool and leather cut for battle; plus frankincense in incense, myrrh, cloves, pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon bought through bribery; granary fresh ground then licked for purity; mulberry paper for the artist and his aristocratic patrons; tailors and skilled fix-anything welders for the more clumsy matrons; two bits a dice roll for the addicted impoverished wight; half-starved orphans half dressed and leeching a mother's dry tit; three gold a lady for the husband inclined to wander for another's carnal embrace; so spoke the soothsayer, priceless the find of true love on a pretty face, now pay up or be dammed for three generations posthaste; around the alley bend a monk and prostitute, unlaced; hunger; greed; virtue; smiles; wealth and poverty that stretched for miles; color and dazzles and things only dreamed; tactile belief made true by the sinner redeemed; languages guttural and grating or mellifluous in tones; four weeks late, another loss a creditor bemoans; flip; flap; punch; sack the welsher; a mason's work never done; rebuild, rebuild, they need more ashlar; now breath once more; take it slow; breath again and see the status quo.

Jane didn't need to see or smell or feel to know the discourse of a city's ethos. Life was so rarely black and white and Jane took simple solace in being out, being almost free, and tasting it in her tea long gone cold. From her rooftop perch, she looked out. The valley below the castle reaped the benefits of a bio void, snow at the top of the mountains crumbling down to the base with the inching certitude that its prey had nowhere to go. Soon it would be all white and powder and impassable. Even for a Shapeshifter. So they warned her. Jane retied her scarf for warmth, her bare neck flushing pink at the chill and scratched under her boot to satisfy an itch. Jane sipped her tea and went back to humming a berceuse as she waited for Thor.

She was counting on it.

* * *

New moon night made the town lights and lanterns burn that much brightly, and despite its distance, his eyes drank in the beauty of its architecture and glow along the spiraling macadam road. Jotunns, after all, see well in the dark. Tiny specs of people cavorted and jostled, ran and tussled, and were happy. Pursuits of happiness achieved. Common folk with common wants and common worries.

He did not disdain them as so popularly believed. On some given nights he envied them. How they managed contentedness, nay, happiness, with so little whereas little quelled his own desires and the demon Greed occupied too much of his heart. Satisfaction was not in his nature yet how he yearned to be satisfied.

Loki breathed out a silent sigh, the quality of his city affecting him not at all tonight. Not its beauty and not its elementary people. Pivoting gracefully, slowly on heel, he walked over to the person confined on his bed, running fingers across objects and speaking more to the room than the other occupant. He heard not the reply he wanted and waved his hand. Two of the people on the bed went still, drawing a whine from the man yet however much he moved the other two remained unresponsive and even hindered his attempts at friction. His frustrations pickled his brain worse than the wine he imbibed at Loki's table this evening. Good. Loki let the tension build.

"Lord Qiang, within my absence this past year the rat infestation has increased exponentially within these castle walls. I left my ratters with firm, clear orders." Loki perused his personal liquor cabinet, holding one bottle to the dim light, finding it lacking and repeating the process with no sense of urgency. Behind him, his first clone's cock remained buried full hilt in Lord Qiang, but bit by bit he withdrew as did the second clone's mouth recede from Lord Qiang's swollen desires. His chocked protests and pleads won him no small measures of clemency as Loki's clones proved stronger than he, their grips no longer unyielding but nail-digging painful.

"Please, please Prince Loki," he panted.

Loki ignored him. Lord Qiang was not one of his, had never been one of his men, but he was skilled at obtaining the right information he needed from the right person. Lady Ilmr was as wanton and nose deep in court secrets as he recalled. It was a point of pride knowing his skills as a lover and business man had not been lost this past year. So the game went, a few results with a few casualties but then Sköll relished in the mess he made and Loki made his peace with that long ago. Besides, having a wolf known to bite at his side proved an effective deterrent for the more weak-hearted.

The man previous had a predilection for galenicals and biologics with galvanic results. Tweak the purity of his supply and watch one of Asgard's prominent warriors slaver for the slightest relief. Loki wanted a name. Qiang, the addict supplied, which led him to number six in a very long list and Loki's patience was wearing thin.

The clone beneath Qiang caressed his balls, gentle in its deception at first. The lord said nothing and that caress became a squeeze, the lord howling and the other's clone's grip holding him in place to continue his suffering. It finally let go and Qiang sagged on the bed, whimpering for release. Loki found the bottle and maker of his desire and poured himself a glass. Stiff and dark and burning in its acidic alcohol content. The prince eased himself into a chair, looking at the nobleman. He continued, "Very clear orders, Lord Qiang. Some of them carried them out to their deaths and my decided unhappiness over it. Others turned within the month as I soon learned. Don't worry," he smiled, more lips than teeth this time. "I took care of those myself.

"But you? Oh, I wonder about you. I'd like to take care of you." His second clone resumed his gentle caress, teasing in its nature like a promise. Loki straightened out his pant cuff with his free hand and smoothed out the wrinkles, too. He looked Qiang in the eye. "If only you'll make it worth my time."

Qiang licked his lips to a nervous tic. "I-I don't…"

Loki was curt. "Leave us." The clones got up to move.

"No! No! General Mundar! General Mundar was my contact." The clones stood by the bed but did not resume their positions.

"That name means little to me Qiang. A rat without the rat's nest is worth very, very little to me." The prince's tone grew darker at the end of his statement and emotion finally flashed on Loki's face. Qiang swallowed and began to sweat for entirely new reasons.

"It's, that is, I had to go into town to meet my contact. We could not do it in the castle. Too, too many eyes." One clone got back on the bed, licking his way up Qiang's back and sucking hard on his pulse. Qiang shuddered. "We meet in rathskeller. Noisy. It had to be noisy so people had less likelihood of over hearing us." The clone went two fingers deep and pistoned them in and out, in and out. He curled them for effect and Qiang cursed. He encouraged the clone, his prince, to keep going, to never stop. Loki let him enjoy it for three pulsing heartbeats.

"Codes, Lord Qiang. I need codes." He did not answer immediately and Loki pulled his clone back once more. Qiang jumped like an obedient dog. Moans and pleas punctured his words.

"We assume names of the provinces—Byrgir, Breidablik, Gimli, Vingolf—initiates take on the moniker of Valgrind, until a higher associate bestows a title upon them. They meet twice a month when it's a half moon. Except, except for emergencies, the higher ups will flag a special signal to discuss an issue. They did it when you returned." Loki's hand made to make a gesture. "No!" Qiang blubbered. "I don't know it! I swear I don't! I'm not high enough in the organization for that sort of knowledge. I only know because Consort Freya canceled a meeting with me at that time. She said, said it was because something important came up. Alluded to people in power."

_Consort Freya?_ Loki mulled this over and stood.

"My prince, please…" Without warning the clone re-sheathed himself and rode Qiang hard, pushing his neck down to the bed for a better angle. The nobleman grunted and groaned his pleasure. The second clone joined him. Loki made eye contact with a third he summoned quietly in the shadows. This one, however, was his exact copy down to the drink in hand.

_Keep him here. All night and tomorrow. No interruptions._ The clone inclined his head in a bow. Loki left as Qiang barked out his release, oblivious to all else.

Kvasir squatted outside the door, hunched over his cane in an incongruous image of a man acting his age. Lines dragged down his face and not in the usual frown. The bed board banging against the wall and cries of pleasure echoed outside the door. Loki did not wait for him and walked across his chambers. Kvasir heaved to his feet and followed, silently.

"Stay and relay orders. I will be in my chambers this night and the day next. I will not want to be disturbed."

"Yes, my prince."

"Is Skrymir still in town?"

"A few of our associates are purifying the galenicals our guest enjoys as per the agreement and another fetching the Alfheim wine for those with good taste, but Skrymir is with the guilds' leaders. A traveling troupe came to town and Skrymir showed them to the Red Box seats. The show started an hour ago."

Loki quickly undressed, trading his garments for a smithy's boots, long-sleeved tunic and apron. His muscles bulked up and face darkened albeit his hair color warped offset to an auburn plait, soots speckled his everything and nasty burns cut across his right ear and cheek. The smell of phosphate, like freshly struck match tinged the air. His voice deepened to a rustic pitch with the slur of a man who regularly drank too much. Loki did not ask but Kvasir told him anyway.

"Bragi discovered a new player—"

"Consort Freya." Kvasir blinked his unseeing eyes.

"Yes," he drawled. "She is high up in the organization. Near Amora but not close." He chose his next words carefully. "He firmly believes that she has a proclivity for fine, delicate jewelry. Like the Stars of Fensalir."

Loki pulled to a halt. He centered a curious stare on the blind man. Perhaps this consort just liked fine jewelry. Or, perhaps, this consort had ambition. Kvasir did not so much as twitch under Loki's scrutiny. Loki pulled up a hood and donned a second visage as a footman, perfumed and all. One mask hiding behind another. Innocuous and unusual to see coming and going from a prince's room.

"Bragi enjoys the sweeter Alfheim wine. Set aside two bottles for his return. And rest Kvasir. Summon Sköll and take your dues." The sage's mouth pinched at the thought of that young git and Loki grinned at him. "A wolf that loves to bite is apt to be a better guard than a man with a cane."

"To the uninitiated," Kvasir groused. Loki's grin widened.

"Aye, to the uninitiated."

Loki left his chambers behind. He had a show to see and would need a drink afterwards.

.

.

.


End file.
